AMERICAN EDUCAnON 



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RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN 
AMERICAN EDUCATION 



RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN 
AMERICAN EDUCATION 



By 
JOSEPH HENRY CROOKER 

Author of Probl£Ms in American Sociity, etc. 



1 to'a^o^-j,,, ' 



BOSTON 
AMERICAN UNITARIAN ASSOCIATION 

1903 



n 



THE LIBRARY OF 
CONGRESS, 


Two Copies 


Received 


JUN 17 


1903 


Copyright 
CLAS^' fC 


Entry 
XXc. Ne. 


^ S 
COPY 


7-/ 
a 



^"-] b 



Copyright iqo3 
American Unitarian Association 



A WORD OF THANKS 

The presidents of many colleges and universi- 
ties have responded to my inquiries for facts 
with uniform courtesy and valuable information. 
Many other persons have generously aided me in 
my investigations. To all of these I wish to 
express my warmest appreciation for the kind- 
nesses received. I wish especially to thank 
Prof. Wm. H. Carruth of the University of 
Kansas, Hon. O. E. Butterfield of the Detroit 
Bar, and Prof. Francis G. Peabody of Harvard 
University for friendly assistance and important 
suggestions, though these gentlemen are not re- 
sponsible for any of the opinions here set forth. 



Joseph H. Ceooker. 



Ann Arboe, Michigan, 
1903. 



PREFACE 

The origin of this book is to be found in the 
vote of the Annual Meeting of the American 
Unitarian Association, adopted on May 21, 
1901, wherein it was — 

Voted, To request the President to appoint a 
committee of the Association to consider and 
report upon the condition and progress of un- 
sectarian education in American schools, acade- 
mies, and colleges. 

In accordance with this vote the President 
appointed as this committee Professor Franklin 
W. Hooper, director of the Brooklyn Institute, 
Brooklyn, N.Y. ; Professor Samuel C. Derby, 
Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio ; Eev. 
Joseph H. Crooker, Ann Arbor, Mich. ; Ellis 
Peterson, Esq., supervisor of the Boston Public 
Schools; Frederic Winsor, Esq., Middlesex 
School, Concord, Mass. ; Thomas Q. Browne, 
Esq., Morristown School, Morristown, KJ. ; 
Eev. James De Normandie, president of the 
trustees of the Eoxbury Latin School ; Professor 



yiii PREFACE 

Horatio S. White, dean of Cornell University, 
Ithaca, N.Y. ; Harrison O. Apthorp, Esq., Mil- 
ton Academy, Milton, Mass.; Professor William 
H. Carruth, University of Kansas, Lawrence, 
Kan. ; and Mr. J. L. Coolidge, instructor in 
Harvard University. This committee duly or- 
ganized with the President of the Association as 
chairman, and Mr. Coolidge as secretary. 

The subjects which are in general set forth in 
the table of contents of this volume were as- 
signed for investigation and report to various 
sub- committees. At a second meeting of the 
committee, these sub- committees reported ; and 
Dr. Crooker was appointed to collate and edit 
these statements, and to write a preliminary re- 
port to be presented at the Annual Meeting of 
the Association in 1902. This preliminary re- 
port was duly prepared and presented, and is to 
be found printed on pages 36-42 of the Annual 
Eeport of the American Unitarian Association 
for 1901-02. Dr. Crooker was then commis- 
sioned to amplify this report for publication in 
book form, and this volume is the result of his 
labor. The individual members of the commit- 
tee approved the preliminary report of which 



PREFACE ix 

this book is the amplification ; but they are not 
individually or collectively responsible for the 
conclusions of this book, which represent Dr. 
Crooker's own observation, experience, and 
judgment. To his task Dr. Orooker brings 
from his efficient service in different parts of 
the country, and especially in the college towns 
of Madison, Wis., and Ann Arbor, Mich., a 
large acquaintance with academic life, a sym- 
pathy with the problems and needs of American 
college students, and a conviction of the value 
of democratic principles. His habit of careful 
investigation and verification, and his power of 
clear statement, combine with this experience to 
entitle him to an expert judgment upon the 
subjects treated in these chapters. The book is 
timely and significant, and its facts and con- 
clusions are commended to the consideration of 
all who are interested in the welfare of the 
American Commonwealth. 

Samuel A. Eliot. 



CONTENTS 

PAGE. 

I. The Seculae State 3 

II. Religious Neutrality in Education 25 

(^III. The Bible and the Public Schools . 53 

ly. The Religious Motive and Higheb 

Education 85 

V, Religion in Denominational Institu- 
tions 105 

VI. NoBMAL Schools and Agricultural 

Colleges 127 

VII. The State Universities 141 

VIII. Some Interesting Experiments . . . 163 

IX. Conclusions and Recommendations . 183 



THE SECULAR STATE 



THE SECULAR STATE 

One of the great problems at whicli Protes- 
tants have been laboring for some four centuries 
has been the creation of a civil government that 
shall administer justice between man and man, 
guarantee the civil and religious freedom of 
every individual, and secure the education of all 
children without trampling upon the religious 
rights of any child. The Modern State in ideal 
and spirit is homocentric. It represents an ap- 
plication to civic affairs of the wise conviction 
that spoke in the notable saying ; ' ' The Sabbath 
was made for man, and not man for the Sab- 
bath." Government is not the end, but the 
instrument of civilization. In olden times the 
individual existed for the sake of the State : with 
us the State exists to protect and perfect the 
individual. The primary condition upon which 
the Protestant sentiment insists, when at its best, 
is liberty, — freedom of investigation, freedom of 
worship, freedom of industry, freedom of educa- 

3 



4 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN 

tion. The end in view is a fully developed, 
self-governing, public -spirited human life. 

The time was, and that not long ago, when 
the State not only had religious functions, but 
was itself a religious establishment. Its highest 
ofi&ces were filled by churchmen, while ecclesi- 
astics were by virtue of their position State 
officials. The policy of the State in foreign 
relations and domestic affairs was very largely 
shaped by religious interests. The State took 
account of the religious beliefs of its people, it 
prohibited sceptical writings, and it punished 
heresy as a crime. Its wars were religious wars : 
its treaties were ecclesiastical documents. Then 
all schools were built upon religious foundations. 
Their chief studies were theological, and their 
primary aim was to prepare men for service in 
the church. Education was in those days an 
ecclesiastical method more than a means of 
human development. 

The movement which we are discussing has, 
at times, made very slow progress among Prot- 
estants ; and even the prominent Eeformers 
often imperfectly understood and only partially 
obeyed the great principles which they held in 



AMERICAN EDUCATION 6 

trust. Moreover, the beginnings of this move- 
ment antedate the Eeformation by many years. 
To find one of the first men who did see the 
great truths which have been incorporated into 
the Modern State, we have to go back to Mar- 
silius of Padua, who in 1324 published a book, 
Defensor FaciSy influential and epoch-making, in 
which ha set church and State apart, holding 
that the State should have no religious func- 
tions and the priest no power in secular affairs. 
This was the prophecy of the modern Secular 
State. 

It was in the same line that Wiclif, ^^the 
Morning Star of the Eeformation, '' taught a half 
century later in his great book, De Dominio 
JDivino. The central theme of this treatise is a 
discussion of the origin and nature of spiritual 
and secular power. He denied that power (or 
authority) flows solely or chiefly through sacra- 
ment and hierarchy, — the Catholic claim ; and 
he asserted that it descends directly from God by 
grace to the individual, and depends upon per- 
sonal service and true ministry. This doctrine 
struck at the root of all tyrannies in State and 
church, and made Wiclif a good deal of a demo- 



6 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN 

crat, or even socialist, when tliese terms were 
unknown. 

Finally, in tlie space of a little over fifty 
years, in the sixteenth century, some great 
events for freedom occurred. Luther's heroism 
broke the chains of mediaeval superstition, 
though he failed to make reason free and the 
gospel independent of the State. But Zwingli 
labored with a more rational spirit ; and in 
England Thomas More made, in Utopia, a plea 
for religious toleration, which, as a statesman, 
he unfortunately did not practise. Then Cas- 
tellio, who looked on in sorrow as Calvin burned 
Servetus at Geneva in 1553, raised his voice in 
clear and earnest denunciation of such per- 
secutions for opinion's sake ; and he advocated 
the widest liberty of belief for all. About a 
dozen years later William of Orange in the 
Netherlands tried hard to put this theory into 
practice as a State policy. In Poland, a dozen 
years still later, the broad-minded Socinus was 
preaching and practising this glorious doctrine 
of freedom in religious belief. In 1568 Sigis- 
mund went far beyond his age in an act granting 
religious freedom to Hungary. Then soon after 



AMERICAN EDUCATION 7 

(1598) in France came the '^ Edict of Nantes/^ 
which gave liberty of conscience, but not univer- 
sal freedom of worship. 

All through the sixteenth century, however, 
Catholics and Protestants were cruelly persecut- 
ing each other. Parties within the Eomish 
Church and Protestant sects without were doing 
the same to each other. The story is long and 
indescribably mournful and horrible. Some- 
thing was here and there gained for toleration, 
as the facts just stated show j but the one great 
truth that would have stopped the bloodshed 
had not been established, — that the State cease 
to undertake to regulate the religious opinions of 
the people. 

But a beginning in this direction was make by . 
Eobert Browne in 1584 by his little pamphlet, 
True and ShoH Declaration^ in which he argued 
that church and State be separated for the good 
of both gospel and commonwealth. Here was a 
view of religion and the church which took the 
gospel out of bondage to both priest and politi- 
cian and retired the State from all attempts to 
coerce its citizens in matters of belief. 

This was the first of what may be called the 



8 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN 

^^Ten Great Words" for religious equality. In 
1610 John Eobinson followed with his Justifica- 
tion of Separation, arguing the case more in detail 
than Browne. Eoger Williams, in 1644, put 
into print, in The Bloody Tenent of Fersecution, 
the doctrine of the non-interference of the State 
in religion which he had been preaching for ten 
years. Soon (1647) Jeremy Taylor followed 
with a similar plea in The Liberty of Prophesying, 
a plea for a free preacher in a free pulpit. In 
those days of great things in England for human 
rights, Cromwell took advanced ground for a 
free press and the freedom of religious opinion, 
though he found it hard to practise the princi- 
ples of liberty. John Milton, in 1659, carried 
forward the cause of freedom which he had long 
been advocating (Areopagitica had been pub- 
lished in 1644) in his work on Civil Power in 
Ecclesiastical Causes. A dozen years later Will- 
iam Penn stated a needed word in defence of 
the Friends in Liberty of Conscience. Then John 
Locke rounded out this generation of agitation 
in his Letters on Toleration (1689). 

IN'early a century later we come upon the three 
giants in this cause of human freedom. Yol- 



AMERICAN EDUCATION 9 

taire's intense hatred of bigotry and oppression 
flashed forth in 1762 in his Treatise on Toleration. 
Lessing, in 1779, published the noblest words of 
all, — Nathan the Wise. And, about the time our 
Federal Constitution was being framed, the great 
scientist, Joseph Priestley, penned his Letter to 
William Pitt on Toleration. Of great importance 
also is his Essay on the Frinciples of Government^ 
1771, sections V.-YIII. These are the chief 
literary expressions of the conviction, which 
finally grew to mastery, that church and State 
must be separate, and that all men must be left 
free to form and enjoy their own religious be- 
liefs. 

Besides the influences of this literature of 
freedom, there were other agencies at work 
which led the Modern State to a more or less 
complete abandonment of ecclesiastical func- 
tions. 

Among them the following may be mentioned 
as the chief : (1) A profound change in the atti- 
tude of the people toward Eome. The Eoman 
hierarchy became discredited, especially in the 
sixteenth century, by its inability to provide for 
the higher life of the nations ; and a popular 



10 RELIGIOUS FREED 031 IN 

conviction grew up that the Papal power subor- 
dinated all national interests and the general 
welfare of humanity to her own selfish aggran- 
dizement. Eevolt was inevitable, and that revolt 
shattered the ecclesiastical ideal of government 
associated with the Catholic Church. 

(2) The consolidation of the small powers of 
Western Europe into great nations raised up 
rulers who, in becoming conscious of their own 
powers, became jealous of their rights ; and, in 
making and executing plans of their own, they 
were carried into opposition against Eome, and 
toward a secular ideal and policy. 

(3) The rise to power, at the close of the 
Middle Ages, of the industrial type of society 
tended to secularize the State in two ways : 
First, the energies of the individual were liber- 
ated, and each man became conscious of the 
dignity and importance of his own life. These 
centres of industrialism were the homes of a 
sturdy passion for liberty. In them the evils of 
priestcraft were understood, and the authority 
of the church was resisted. And, as the right of 
private opinion began to be realized, the conclu- 
sion was inevitable that government must retire 



AMERICAN EDUCATION H 

from tlie control of religious belief to the mainte- 
nance of civil justice. Second, industrialism 
destroyed the acetic spirit and the sacerdotal 
ideal. The growing prominence of economic 
interests replaced the clerical habits of thought 
with a secular tone and temper, and people be- 
gan to feel that government ought to devote it- 
self to the affairs of this world. The State must 
not only be the guardian of freedom, it must , 
foster social progress and temporal interests. 
Thus all the reactions produced by commercial 
and industrial activities carried the State toward 
a reduction of its functions to secular affairs. 

(4) The revival of learning brought forward 
the classical ideals of antiquity, which were abso- 
lutely opposed to the teachings of the church 
respecting individual character and national 
duties. The increasing study of Eoman juris- 
prudence established and emphasized the idea 
of natural rights in the place of the dogma of 
ecclesiastical authority. The growth of the | 
scientific spirit closely associated with the new \ 
learning, by destroying belief in the supersti- ) 
tions of the church, brought the clerical ideal 
into discredit, while it fostered respect for the 



12 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN 

affairs of this life and stimulated temporal activi- 
ties. 

(5) The multiplication of sects, under the im- 
petus given to the assertion of private opinions 
by Protestantism, compelled governments to 
withdraw from ecclesiastical affairs. The State, 
to enjoy any iDcace and to maintain any author- 
ity, was forced to become secular when its 
people became divided into several rival church 
organizations. The growth of sects in England 
has gradually secularized the government j for, 
though an established church continues to exist, 
yet it is an anachronism, and in reality civil gov- 
ernment is carried forward without any special 
reference to dogmatic or ecclesiastical matters. 

The co-operation of these and other causes has 
tended to secularize the Modern State, so that 
civil government has practically become inde- 
pendent of the church, while the affairs of relig- 
ion have been removed more and more from 
political control to private management. There 
have been no religious wars since the peace of 
Westphalia in 1648. Ecclesiastics hardly ever 
occupy civil of&ces, and church interests have no 
prominence in political movements. Through- 



AMERICAN EDUCATION 13 

out the civilized world the civil power has prac- 
tically ceased to punish heresy as a crime j and, 
outside of Eussia, hardly any State attempts to 
exercise censorship over the press in matters 
pertaining to religion. 

The work of Eoger Williams, John Locke, and 
other kindred spirits, for the secularization of 
the State, is too well known to need descrip- 
tion. Eeference has already been made to their 
writings. In Germany Puffendorf ^' drove the 
theologians out of political science and founded 
a purely lay theory of the State,'' while Freder- 
ick the Great ^^was the first to emancipate 
Europe religiously and to create the purely 
Secular State." The French Ee volution, with 
bloody hands, tore asunder the bonds which 
united church and State, and laid bare the natu- 
ral rights of man as the true basis of government, 
which, in the words of Locke, must derive its 
power from the people and use it for the people. 

Frederic Harrison has well stated the spirit 
and object of the Modern State: ^^ About all the 
functions of the State there runs one common 
characteristic : in the first place, they concern 
men in their material lives, in the free employ- 



14 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN 

ment of their industry^ and tlie facilities of com- 
mon intercourse. In the second place, they act 
in material ways by the arm, ultimately, of the 
policeman and the turnkey : they stand apart 
from the si^here of persuasion, they act only 
when the mass of the citizens are practically 
agreed." What a nation simply as a ]Deople 
may need or be is one thing : what they may see 
fit to do through their government is quite 
another thing. 

It is well for a nation as a people to have a 
rich and vigorous religious life ; but the modern 
spirit has determined that the cultivation of the 
religious life is not one of the functions of civil 
government. The celebrated argument of Mr. 
Gladstone, which even Lord Macaulay so in- 
adequately answered, is fatally weak at this 
point. It fails to take any account of the pro- 
found difference between the corporate life of 
the nation and the functions of civil government. 
We are a Christian !N'ation in a certain sense, 
considered solely as a people j but the govern- 
ment of the United States is neither Christian 
nor infidel : it is simply non-religious. 
I In the United States, by a more peaceful 



AMERICAN EDUCATION 15 

process than that followed in Europe, our Eevo- 
lutionary fathers established, not simply uni- 
versal toleration, but perfect religious equality, 
by making it unconstitutional for any State to 
enact any law respecting an establishment of 
religion. The civil government of our land is 
subject to no ecclesiastical dictation, and the 
churches within our borders are subject to no 
civil authority in matters of belief. We have 
practically realized this Secular Ideal. With 
us not only are church and State absolutely 
separate from each other : the State attempts 
no religious functions and possesses no religious 
dogma. 

It is well for churchmen in America, when 
they seek to interfere in civil affairs, to remember 
that they are given freedom in religion upon 
condition that they leave the State free in its 
specific work. If they do not want the State to | 
supervise its affairs, they must leave the State I 
absolutely free in its legislative and educational i 
work. 

The Secular State is, therefore, in the United 
States, an accomplished fact, thanks especially 
to the wisdom of such men as Franklin, Jeffer- 



16 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN 

son, and Madison. And our civil institutions 
have, and can have, no ecclesiastical duties or 
spiritual offices. And, while some of our courts 
have held that Christianity is, in a certain way, 
the law of the land, yet these decisions have in 
the main been very vague j and, so far as any of 
them have taken ground against the purely 
secular theory of our government, they have 
misstated the genius of our institutions, while 
they have been condemned by the manifest des- 
tiny and essential spirit of our National Life. 

It is often urged that Christianity is a part of 
the law of the land, because our Puritan fore- 
fathers tried to set up on these shores a theocracy 
based upon the pattern found in the Scriptures* 
But people who so argue forget that the experi- 
ment, in this respect, was a failure. They forget 
also the history that we have made since that 
day. And what great men said on this subject 
before we as a I^ation had completed our politi- 
cal evolution toward our manifest destiny as a 
Secular State is of no value or authority. Some 
things which cannot be ignored have happened 
since the days of John Cotton or even Daniel 
Webster. 



AMERICAN EDUCATION 17 

And the position of Christianity in N^ew Eng- 
land two centuries ago is no more a precedent 
for us who live to-day than the behavior of the 
men of that age respecting witches or heretics is 
a rule of action binding upon us. This question 
cannot be settled by appeal to precedent or 
technicality or the authority of great names, but 
by the essential and inherent genius or character 
of our people, as it progressively discloses itself 
in our National Life. And the one thing that 
becomes clearer and clearer is that public opin- 
ion, social custom, and civil policy are declaring 
more and more emphatically for the Secular 
Ideal. 

We must also remember, what is so often for- 
gotten even by distinguished writers upon this 
subject, that there is a vast difference between 
what we, as a people, may be in religion and 
what our civil institutions, as parts of the gov- 
ernment, may attempt. The great importance 
of this truth, to which reference has already 
been made, makes another and fuller statement 
of it not inappropriate. As a people, taken in 
a mass, it is fair to say that we are a Christian 
community ; but to the government which we 



18 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN 

maintain we give no religious quality or func- 
tion. It is proper to say that we are a Christian 
people : it is not proper to affirm that we are a 
Christian Nation. It is equally improper to say 
that we have a godless or irreligious government. 
The fact is that, with us, the State simply stands 
apart from these matters in absolute neutrality. 
Here is a department of human life from which 
civil government retires, not because it is unim- 
portant, but because it is better for all interests 
that the field be left free from political super- 
vision. 

The religious beliefs of our people and the 
popular estimate of the Bible do not come into 
the discussion of the question respecting the secu- 
larization of the Modern State, because the civil 
government has ceased to exercise religious func- 
tions. And this movement is not only irresist- 
ible, but beneficent. As Mr. Lecky remarks, 
^^The secularization of politics is the measure 
and the condition of all political prosperity.'^ 
And we may well add that the separation of the 
church from the State is the measure and condi- 
tion of all religious prosperity. The only way 
to make piety real and vital is to take it out of 



A3IERICAN EDUCATION 1^ 

the reach of officialism and locate it in the in- 
dividual heart. 

The Secular State is, then, no sudden creation,, 
the freak of frenzied enemies of religion. It has 
come out of the slowly accumulating experiences 
of mankind, as the political spirit has carefully 
and laboriously gone forward in its earnest quest 
for a government that at the same time shall be 
best for the individual and for society, that shall 
give the church the largest possibilities and the 
State the greatest political efficiency. The Secu- 
lar State is, too, the creation of religious men^ 
who have persevered in their course with noble 
heroism in the face of persecutions, and who 
have worked with large views of humanity and in 
obedience to the manifest teachings of history to 
fashion a government where politics shall be free 
from religious hatreds, and where the church 
shall be free from the despotisms and the corrup- 
tions of politics. We may lament, we may 
denounce j but the Secular State is the expres- 
sion and the outcome of a resistless tendency 
which will crush any man or institution that 
stands in its way and attempts to impede its 
progress. 



20 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN 

That we have in the United States of America 
always been true to the spirit of freedom cannot 
be truthfully claimed. That we have in all re- 
spects reached the ideal of the Secular State can- 
not be successfully maintained. Survivals of the 
ancient order remain in different parts of our 
land. Laws now exist here and there and meth- 
ods still persist that violate the basic principles 
of our free government. 

The following facts, however, show that we 
have, in the main, been loyal to the spirit of lib- 
erty. The Constitution of the United States 
forbids the enactment of laws establishing any 
religion. Twenty-eight States forbid the giving 
of any preference by law to any sect or to any 
denominational mode of worship. Twenty-five 
States prohibit the use of public funds for sec- 
tarian institutions or purposes, or especially the 
use of the public school fund for such purposes. 
In twenty-six State constitutions it is provided 
that no one shall be compelled to pay for the 
support of any church or minister save by his 
own consent. Twenty States expressly guarantee 
the freedom of conscience. No State is wholly 
without some provision of this sort. 



A3IERICAN EDUCATION 21 

From these and various other guarantees and 
prohibitions of State and National constitutions, 
it seems justifiable to declare that the spirit of 
American institutions is profoundly opposed to 
the union of church and State in any shape or 
form, — to the use of the power and property of 
the whole people for or against the religious 
beliefs and institutions of any part of the 
people. 



RELIGIOUS NEUTRALITY IN 
EDUCATION 



RELIGIOUS NEUTRALITY IN EDUCA- 
TION 

There is a force at work in our country at the 
heart of human affairs which shapes our govern- 
mentj creates public opinion, rules the common 
mind, and points the way to progress. It is 
what we may call the ^ ' American Idea, ' ' because 
it has found its clearest expression here, though 
it is a motive power which is at work everywhere 
in modern society. And what is the American 
Idea? It is a new conception of the basis of 
social union and the function of human govern- 
ment. This theory of the State as a purely 
secular institution has nowhere been better de- 
scribed than by Bluntschli : '^The modern idea 
of the State is not religious, though it is not irre- 
ligious. . . . Modern political science does not 
profess to comprehend the ways of God, but 
endeavors to understand the State as a human 
institution. . . . The Modern State does not con- 
sider religion a condition of legal status, . . . but 

25 



26 RELIGIOUS FREED 031 IN 

develops the common freedom of citizenship in 
all classes and compels every one to submit to its 
authority.'' The American Idea means a gov- 
ernment organized on the basis of universal 
humanity, to guard common rights and to pro- 
mote the welfare and progress of all men. 

The American theory of civil government 
which gives us the Secular State also gives us 
the secular Public School. The secularization 
of the State involves and necessitates the secu- 
larization of its schools. Says Professor William 
H. Payne, a prominent American educator, 
^^The neutrality, or absolute non-theological 
character of the school, in all its grades, is but 
the application to the school of a rule that has 
prevailed in all our social institutions." The 
conclusion is self-evident. The State must have 
schools to educate its children, for no State can 
long endure whose children are not educated in 
hearty sympathy with its institutions and in 
accord with its own fundamental principles. 
But, as the Secular State, which our Nation is, 
by manifest destiny and by the express decla- 
ration of its fundamental law, has no religion, 
it follows, as a necessity, that its school can 



AMERICAN EDUCATION 27 

rightfully and lawfully have no religious instruc- 
tion whatever. There is no possible escape from 
this logic. ^'Compulsory support, by taxation 
or otherwise, of religious instruction, is not law- 
ful under any of the American constitutions,'^ is 
the conclusion of Judge Thomas M. Cooley, one 
of America's greatest jurists. 
^ To demand that there be religious instruction 
in our Public Schools is virtually to demand 
that the State shall cease to be secular by estab- 
lishing a religion and becoming ecclesiastical. 
Logically, there is no stopping short of a State 
religion, if religious instruction is insisted upon 
in the Public Schools ; for how can a State school 
teach religion when the State itself has no relig- 
ion % The primary question is : Shall the State 
be secular or ecclesiastical? The school ques- 
tion is a minor problem dependent upon this. If 
we put religious instruction into the schools, we 
cannot logically stop until we put the religious 
dogma taught into our Constitution ; but this 
would destroy our Secular State. Let, then, 
every man who is in favor of religious instruc- 
tion in our Public Schools consider well the 
implication of his demand. Does he want a 



28 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN 

State Eeligion ! If not, then liis request is per- 
fectly illogical. 

It is our duty as American citizens not only 
squarely to face this issue, but to keep it clearly 
before us. The greatness of the problem cannot 
be exaggerated ; for on it hangs the destiny not 
only of our American system of government, but 
of modern civilization itself. At the bottom, it 
is not a question of Bible-reading, or of the fort- 
unes of a particular statute, or even of moral and 
religious education. The question is whether 
we shall maintain the Modern State as a secular 
institution and its necessary function of secular 
education, or whether we shall surrender to 
clericalism and turn human progress back four 
centuries ? 

Let us, then, clear away all these mere details 
about the teaching of ethics and the reading of 
Scripture, and face the real issue with clear eye 
and sober judgment. We need to recognize 
that the perpetuity of civil liberty and modern 
civilization depends upon the maintenance of the 
Public School with its free instruction, neutral 
toward all theological questions ; and we need 
also to recognize that the opposition to our sys- 



AMERICAN EDUCATION 29" 

tern of secular education is deep-seated and far- 
reaching. Surrender to this opposition means 
the extinction of American liberty, and any 
compromise that shall impair the efSciency and 
sovereignty of American citizenship means an 
eclipse of humanity. We must discuss this ques- 
tion in a large way, without passion and with- 
out prejudice, but with a full appreciation of the 
magnitude of the issue, and a clear realization 
of the intent and strength of the opposition. 

The point to be kept constantly in mind and 
strongly emphasized is this : The Secular State, 
from reasons both of justice and of policy, with- 
draws from the sphere of human thought and 
action that we call religious ,* and, having with- 
drawn, it cannot rightfully and lawfully enter 
it again in the direction of religious education, 
for the State cannot carry any religion into the 
school-house until it adopts a religion, and then 
it would cease to be secular. The American 
Nation is the enemy of no religion, but the 
friend of all faiths j the patron and partner of 
no church, but the protector of all churches. 

But there are Protestants who seem ro forget 
this important truth. Eev. Dr. A. A. Hodge 



30 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN 

strangely asserted some ten years agO; '^Tlie 
system of Public Schools must be held, in their 
sphere, true to the claims of Christianity, or 
they must go, with all other enemies of Christ, 
to the wall." But the schools of a Secular 
State can have nothing to do with the super- 
natural, or with any other, claims of relig- 
ion. To be non- denominational is not enough : 
they must teach no religious dogma. Yet, in 
taking this position, they become enemies of 
nothing but intolerance and superstition. 

In this fact, that the State is secular, lies the 
answer to those who favor providing various 
kinds of religious instruction in our common 
schools, according to the religious beliefs of the 
families represented. The State can no more 
have a multiform religion than a single estab- 
lished faith. It ean no more teach three dogmas 
about God than one ; for as a Secular State, it 
has relinquished all teaching in that direction. 
In this fact, also, lies the answer to those who 
are asking for a division of the public funds 
among denominational schools. To tax people 
in order to support denominational schools is an 
ecclesiastical business : it is becoming a party to 



AMERICAN EDUCATION 31 

religious instruction. And a Secular State can 
engage in no such business : it can never be tlie 
agent of any religious organization. 

There is one thing in this connection often 
overlooked, to which attention needs to be called. 
The Eoman Catholic argument against secular 
schools is, in its essential nature and by logical 
implication, an argument against the Secular 
State. The Catholic demand, if allowed, would 
compel our government to go to Eome for orders 
respecting everything, and so surrender not 
only its essential functions of education, but its 
very existence as an independent institution. 
The Catholics have, primarily, the same objec- 
tion to godless governments as to godless schools. 
They hold to De Maistre's ideal, — that the 
spiritual power ought to control the temporal 
power. Their objections, brought against the 
secular schools, are equally applicable to the 
secular character of the Nation itself ; and the 
Papal Hierarchy, victorious over the Public 
Schools, would not be satisfied until it destroyed 
the Secular State. 

If the Catholics succeed in closing the Public 
Schools, they will restate and reapply their old 



32 RELIGIOUS FREED 031 IN 

argument, thus : We object to paying taxes to 
support a godless State. No compromise will 
satisfy them, — neither rejecting the Bible nor in- 
troducing the primary affirmations of universal 
religion. Eome temporarily accepts the inevi- 
table, but never compromises. The real question 
at the bottom of all this agitation is, Shall we 
maintain our Secular State, or go back to the 
Dark Ages? Whenever discussing the school 
question, we must always remember that it is 
only a subordinate part of that larger problem. 
And it will be well if careless critics of our Pub- 
lic Schools lay to heart in this connection a sol- 
emn warning. Let such persons remember that 
by these very denunciations they are putting a 
club into the hands of clerical opponents by 
which they will strive to strike down, not simply 
the secular school, but the Secular State. They 
even now quote with great glee these Protestant 
criticisms of the Public Schools. 

Our secular schools are far from perfect ; but, 
on the whole, they are the best that the 
world has ever had, and their underlying 
policy must be maintained if we keep the 
Secular State. So, unless one wishes to be- 



AMERICAN EDUCATION 33 

come a coadjutor of Eome, let him support 
and improve, but not malign, the common school 
system. The American State guarantees to all 
the right to believe as they see fit respecting re- 
ligious problems, but it grants to none the lib- 
erty to imperil its own life. As the State, by 
manifest destiny and organic law, is secular j as 
it must educate its children to preserve and per- 
petuate its own life ; and as its schools must be 
as secular as its own character, having no re- 
ligion of its own to put into its system of educa- 
tion, — it follows of necessity that an attack upon 
our Public Schools is, by implication, an attack 
upon our form of government. Every one is free 
to criticise the schook for their improvement, 
but no one has any right to attack them in order 
to destroy them and the Secular State which 
stands behind them. Xo one has a right to 
strike at the life of the Modern State by striking 
at the secular Public School, which is a vital 
organ of the Modern State, embodying its pri- 
mary principles and guarding its most precious 
interests. 

The objection is made that the Public School, 
as at present conducted, is godless. But a sec- 



34 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN 

ular school is no more godless than a Secular 
State J and, If the children belonging to any 
church must leave the Public School because 
it does not teach dogma, why ought not their 
parents to leave the United States because as 
a ^N'ation we have no creed? And yet, why 
should the simple teaching of reading, grammar, 
and mathematics, be called godless? Is a tem- 
perance convention godless because not held 
under the shadow of a crucifix? What truth 
is there in the claim that fractions and the cate- 
chism can be most successfully taught only when 
they are taught together ? Will not the ritual 
take effect unless accompanied by the multipli- 
cation table ? There certainly is no ground for 
calling the purely secular Public School godless ; 
nor is there any reason in the nature of things 
why secular knowledge and religious dogma 
must accompany each other, in order that both 
be made effectual. 

The character and influence of our Public 
Schools are shaped and determined by the 
teachers who preside over them. Who, then, 
are American teachers? Look at the men and 
women who come together in State and l^ational 



A3IERICAN EDUCATION 35 

teacliers' associations. Who are they? The 
most thoughtful, earnest, hard-working, pains- 
taking, and self-sacrificing class in the State. 
In intelligence, singleness of purpose, purity of 
life, there is not a priesthood in the world that 
outranks them ; and there are few that equal 
them. Is it not a frightful slander to call our 
Public Schools irreligious, when, in fact, they 
are taught by as noble and saintly a band of 
workers as ever consecrated themselves to the 
service of humanity ? 

It is imiDossible to make the American people 
believe that our secular schools are turning our 
land into a Sodom, as eminent ecclesiastics un- 
fortunately declare, so long as they are under 
the direction of such men and women. Nor can 
we set a system down as a failure which has 
given us our Websters, Garfields, Greeleys, our 
Garrisons, Parkers, and Whittiers. And it is 
a shame to call our schools godless, when taught 
by such noble men and women as those who 
form the great army of Public School teachers, 
among whom may be found devout persons of 
every faith in the land. God may not be there 
in the dead words of a dogmatic catechism ; but 



36 RELIGIOUS FREED 031 IN 

he is there in the heart and brain of the true 
teacher, which is infinitely better. There is 
nothing so godless as the imposition of dogma 
which paralyzes the growing reason of a child. 

There are churchmen who contend that their 
people ought to be relieved from the burden of 
the unjust taxation imposed upon them for the 
support of the Public School, because they already 
support parochial schools of their own. Let us 
look carefully and candidly at this matter. The 
State exists to protect life and property and to 
promote the temporal welfare of mankind, and 
for these ends it works through certain methods 
and agencies, which begin with the exercise of 
suffrage ; and whatever means are needed for 
these ends the State must use. So that the State 
taxes all, in order to give every child that knowl- 
edge most needed by an American citizen, this 
much being necessary to insure intelligent citi- 
zenship. This right the State has j and, if true 
to itself, it must exercise it. 

"When the churchman objects that it is unjust 
to tax him to support what he cannot use, he 
takes a position which the State must ignore j for 
it has no right to sit in judgment upon the relig- 



AMERICAN EDUCATION 37 

ious beliefs of its citizens, in order to make such 
distinctions between them. Moreover, by this 
claim the churchman puts himself above the au- 
thority of the State, which in matters pertaining 
to citizenship must be supreme. A body of 
people cannot be excused from paying taxes to 
support courts and poorhouses on the plea that 
they have religious scruples against making use 
of them or because they take care of their own 
poor and never go to law. Whatever hardships 
come to the members of any religious body in 
this connection are self-imposed by a religious 
belief, of which the State can take no account 
and with which it can make no compact. The 
State protects all forms of religion, but it must stop 
there : it cannot take cognizance of religious be- 
liefe, which traverse its own rights, in order to 
absolve citizens from their responsibilities of 
citizenship. 

There are those who, assuming to speak in be- 
half of the family, claim that the secular school 
interferes with the right of parents to give their 
children a religious education. It is true that 
the parent has sole guardianship of the child as 
a social and religious being : this special paren- 



38 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN 

tal right the State must respect. But children 
are also citizens in embryo, and in that respect 
they are children of the State. The State is 
hound to protect them in all their civil estate : 
it has a prospective claim upon their services in 
case of war j it is responsible for their training in 
citizenship, because it must protect its own life 
and provide for the perpetuity of its own insti- 
tutions. And this claim upon the child as a 
prospective citizen is, in a way, superior to all 
parental rights, though not in conflict with 
them. The State has a claim upon the child in 
the line of citizenship which the parent must re- 
spect. But the rights of the parent to deter- 
mine and guide the religious training of his 
children are not menaced by the State's asser- 
tion of its own claim respecting education. 
And it is certainly a curious spectacle to see 
churchmen who recognize no liberty of private 
judgment in religious matters, and grant parents 
no freedom whatever for themselves or their 
children, condemning the State because it de- 
stroys parental freedom, — what they themselves 
do not grant ! 

It is true that we have not everywhere se- 



AMERICAN EDUCATION 39 

cured religious neutrality in the Public Schools. 
There are localities where chapel exercises of a 
very definite theological character are still held, 
attendance upon which is compulsory. There 
are schools where the Bible is read as a part of 
a religious service. There are places where the 
religious beliefs of teachers are taken into ac- 
count by school boards, and persons of certain 
types of faith are discriminated against. There 
are American cities where public funds, belong- 
ing to the common schools, are paid to members 
of religious orders, who teach church schools in 
buildings owned by the church and not by the 
State. There are other cities in our land where 
teachers are not allowed to teach the plainest 
facts of history in connection with the story of 
the Eeformation ! But these are exceptional 
cases. The movement in education is not toward 
these things, but away from them. 

President J. G. Schurman, of Cornell Univer- 
sity, has recently proposed a plan by which the 
Public Schools and the churches might work to- 
gether for moral and religious instruction. His 
thought is that, in the present state of religion in 
America, Protestants might unite for this pur- 



40 RELIGIOUS FREED 031 IN 

pose. In a town in wliicli there are several re- 
ligious denominations, he would have the board 
of education invite the clergy to arrange a plan 
for religious instruction, and place at their dis- 
posal a portion of time each day in which all 
other school work should be suspended and all 
pupils who were willing should attend the in- 
struction given by the clergy. He would have 
the same provision made for Eoman Catholics in 
towns where they desired it. President Schur- 
man believes that a profitable alliance might 
thus be arranged between the churches and 
the schools. 

The objections to such a plan as this proposed 
by President Schurman, and approved by some 
other eminent educators in our country, are 
numerous and weighty : {a) The Public Schools 
are already overcrowded with topics of study 
and courses of instruction. This would greatly 
increase a burden now already excessive. It 
would involve the use of time which the teacher 
needs for the specific work of the school. 

(6) This policy would work injury in another 
direction. The thing most imperative to-day 
is to hold the home and the church responsible 



AMERICAN EDUCATION 41 

for the moral and religious training of the 
young. What we need everywhere at present is 
increasing emphasis in this direction. The par- 
ent and the j)reacher must be stirred to new 
activity. They ought to be made to feel that 
here is a work that they must not shirk, that 
they must not hand over to another agency. 
The plan proposed would still farther weaken 
parental responsibility in this line. It would 
also unfortunately lessen the sense of obligation 
in the church. 

(c) The attemx)t to carry out this policy 
would postpone the realization of the religious 
unity toward which we have recently made such 
satisfactory progress. Instead of promoting, it 
would lessen the friendliness which now exists 
among the churches. We should soon lose the 
fairest gain of the last century, and the now ex- 
tinct volcanoes of prejudice and intolerance 
would presently be in active operation. The 
splendid good feeling in the religious world at 
this time, instead of inviting such a scheme, is 
itself an argument against it : Let us maintain 
the policy by which these blessings have been 
won. 



42 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN 

(<?) As has already been pointed out, the 
State school has no more right to teach a short 
creed than a long creed, no more right to im- 
pose an attenuated faith than an elaborate belief, 
no more right to handle the universals than the 
particulars of religion. Introduce this policy, 
and what haj^pens? Violation of the funda- 
mental principles of the Modern State, — religious 
neutrality in education; for the State has no 
more right to allow the use of the time and prop- 
erty of the school for the instruction of its 
children in the religious beliefs common to ten 
churches than it has to impose the dogmas com- 
mon to Unitarians and Universalists ! What 
will happen? A revival of sectarian rivalries. 
And, worse than all else, formalism and offi- 
cialism in the realm of piety, — a disaster, indeed. 
No ! While the home and the church exist, there 
is adequate provision for this training. Let us 
not weaken, but strengthen, the hands that ought 
to give it. 

(e) The advocates of this policy mistake both 
the true character of moral training and the 
real condition of the Public Schools. 

The fact is that our Public Schools, without 



AMERICAN EDUCATION 43 

text-book on ethics or formal moral instruction, 
are efficient training-schools of character in 
more ways than one. 

1. Moral lessons are impressed upon the 
pupil by all the educational material which he 
there uses. Moral sentiment is held in solution 
by the reading-books, which are full of the 
choicest specimens of the world's literature. In 
every mathematical operation the necessity of 
exactness, fidelity, and veracity is enforced. In 
historical studies, moral laws are illustrated upon 
a large scale, and moral qualities are made im- 
pressive by the lives of great men. All these 
facts are sources of moral influences which play 
continually upon the pupil's nature like a tonic 
breeze. And this training is all the more effi- 
cient because it comes informally and operates 
independently of any preachment. To remind 
children continually that they are in this way 
becoming moral would destroy the good influ- 
ence and arrest their growth in character. So 
that, to turn away from this vital training to a 
set exercise, observed for the sake of being good, 
would be a great misfortune. It would make 
our schools far less moral. 



44 RELIGIOUS FEE ED 031 IN 

2. The discipline of the school in itself affords 
a very precious training in morals. "We, doubt- 
less, seldom realize how much is gained for 
higher civilization "by the attendance of a child 
for even six years upon our Public Schools. 
There he is put, during his formative x)eriod of 
life, into an atmosphere and under a discipline 
which afford him training in nearly all the rudi- 
ments of good citizenship. Let us enumerate a 
few of them : punctuality and habits of order ; 
the lesson of obedience to authority and rever- 
ence for the rights and feelings of others as 
human beings ; the sanctity of property and the 
necessity of truthfulness ; a manly bearing and 
respectful speech j the consciousness of inde- 
pendence, tempered with the recognition of 
communal interests and obligations ; the stead- 
fastness of purpose cultivated by task- work, and 
the importance of exactness illustrated by every 
recitation ; the sentiment of equality and the 
feeling of justice enforced by the constant press- 
ure of experience, — these and other moral 
qualities of highest moment are continuously be- 
ing imparted by the vitalizing conditions of the 
school. 



AMERICAN EDUCATION 45 

^3. The personality of the teacher is the chief .^ 
source of moral influence in the school-room. 
The presence of the teacher, if a proper person 
for the position, is worth more than a thousand 
text- books, though they all may be as good as 
the Sermon on the Mount. In the casual judg- 
ments which the teacher passes upon persons and 
events ; in the patience and self-control which 
he exercises upon himself, and which spreads 
from him by a subtile mechanism until it im- 
parts moral health to every pupil ; in the looks 
of approval and disapproval with which he 
meets the behavior of children 5 in the decisions 
which he passes upon the conduct of those under 
his control ; in the tones with which he speaks 
to the dullest boy or the most timid girl ; in the 
forgiveness which he enjoins and practises j in 
the veracity which he displays and the sincerity 
which he inspires ; in the kindness which he be- 
stows and the self-sacrifice which he recom- 
mends, — in all these acts and attitudes the true 
teacher makes his school a school of applied 
morals, where character really grows. *i 

Shall, then, our Public Schools teach a formal 
moral code? No, rather let them possess a 



46 RELIGIOUS FREED 031 IN 

moral atmosphere, derived from the personality 
of the teacher. For there is only one way to 
Increase the moral power of the school ; and 
that is, not by creating new didactic machinery, 
but by investing in nobler teachers. Place a 
Horace Mann or a Thomas A^rnold in a school- 
room, and that school will possess more moral 
power than resides in all the ethical handbooks in 
the whole world. We must, then, put our faith 
and invest our money in teachers of the very 
highest character, and we may be sure, that 
where they are, there will be moral culture 
ripening noble manhood and womanhood ; for 
more powerful than everything else is moral 
life itself. 

Certain clerical denunciations of our Public 
Schools have been so extreme and unreasonable 
that they have answered themselves ; and, there- 
fore, they need no special attention. Some of 
our eminent public men have, however, re- 
cently been inclined to hold our educational 
system responsible for everything evil in our 
midst. Doubtless, our fathers did expect too 
much of the common school. General education 
has not dried up the sources of crime, nor has 



AMERICAN EDUCATION 4cl 

it given us a race of intellectual giants and fault- 
less saints. But it is surely very unreasonable 
to pass by all other agencies and influences, and 
centre our criticism and censure upon the 
Public School. It is absurd to charge the wide- 
spread indifference to religion upon the school- 
teacher, and let the hundred thousand churches 
go free of blame. It is equally absurd to attrib- 
ute our moral delinquencies to the secular 
school, and absolve the home, the Sunday-school, 
the press, and the market-place of responsibilty. 
If our schools have done less than what was ex- 
pected of them, let us remember that they have 
had to contend against a large number of unex- 
pected evils. 

The secular Public School is exactly in line 
with the sublime tendency toward freedom in 
which Hegel found the key to all historic dis- 
pensations. It is precisely expressive of that 
humanitarian spirit which has swept away 
judicial torture, inquisitorial barbarities, per- 
secution for opinion's sake, religious tests, and a 
great host of monsters. It is the very efflo- 
rescence of that constructive justice of the centu- 
ries which on battlefield and in court and senate, 



48 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN 

and through martyr's blood and poet's song and 
statesman's eloquence, has builded deep and 
strong a commonwealth where the rights of each 
and the good of all are united in one glorious 
harmony of interests. 

When we turn our eyes to discern the deepest 
movements of modern history and bend our 
head to hear ^^ the tread of men in fulfilment of 
the great destinies of the race, ' ' what we see is 
the slowly uptowering Modern State, where law 
is free from ecclesiastical dictation and politics 
from sectarian rancor ; where education is free 
from theological despotism, and science from 
the yoke of tradition ; where every man is se- 
cure in the exercise of his religious conviction, 
and where no man is ever obliged to contribute 
to the support of a dogma which he disbelieves ; 
and, also, where religion, divinest daughter of 
heaven, unmolested in her own kingdom, is 
free from bureaucratic dictation and the cor- 
rupting entanglements of ]3olitical strife. And 
what we hear is the chorus of multitudes, like 
the mighty roar of Niagara breaking into articu- 
late speech, all pleading for what has proved the 
providence of God, that every man be given a 



AMERICAN EDUCATION 49 

chance to find and live tlie True, the Beauti- 
ful, the Good, in his own fashion as long as he 
does not trespass upon the rights of others. To 
the pattern of the Modern State the judges of 
our courts have as a rule fitted their decisions, 
to the prophecy of the ages they have given a 
local habitation. 

As we bend our ear to catch the faintly 
whispered demand of the myriads of children 
yet unborn, we hear the divinely urgent exhor- 
tation : Guard for us the Public School from 
priestly tyranny and dogmatic zealotry, from 
ecclesiastical dictation and the poison of secta- 
rian passion ; preserve it in all its sacred freedom 
and truly catholic functions j protect it as the 
organ and oracle of the humanity of man ; and, 
finally, hand it down to us as the seed-plot 
of patriotism, more efficient for citizenship be- 
cause dogma is not there, and more friendly to 
religion because no unwise use of the Bible is 
there attempted. 



THE BIBLE AND THE PUBLIC 
SCHOOLS 



THE BIBLE AND THE PUBLIC 
SCHOOLS 

"We come now to the discussion of the ques- 
tion, what place has the Bible in the schools 
of the Secular State ? As a religious revelation 
or the source of dogma, no place at all. For the 
Secular State cannot be the patron of any 
dogma or the custodian of any revelation. There 
is no going behind this fact. It may be obscured 
by sophistry or condemned by sentimental 
prejudice, but the fact itself cannot be re- 
moved. 

The Bible as literature, to be read as literature, 
has the same place in the Public Schools as 
Shakespeare or Homer, though there may be 
substantial reasons of another character why 
this should not be done. To read Job in the 
common school is as legitimate as to read ^ ^ Ham- 
let, " if it be read j ust as ^ ' Hamlet ' ' is read. But 
the Bible has no place in the Public Schools as an 
authoritative statement of religious ideas or as a 

53 



54 RELIGIOUS FREED 031 IN 

means of worsMp. This follows of necessity, be- 
cause the State, being secular, can have nothing 
to do with a religious service or with religious 
instruction. To assert that the Bible ought to 
be read as a religious exercise is equivalent to 
asserting that the State ought to have a religion. 
That thrusts upon us the problem, What relig- 
ion shall the State adopt ? Even lovers of the 
Bible do not want to go as far as that ; but, to be 
consistent, they must go as far as that, or cease to 
claim a place in the Public Schools for the Bible 
as a religious revelation or as an authoritative 
statement of religious truth. 

The secular school is not an enemy of the 
Bible. It simply refuses, in loyalty to the con- 
stitution of the Secular State, of which it is a 
part, to make any formal religious uses of the 
Bible. This policy does not exclude the Bible 
from the schools : it simply excludes certain 
ecclesiastical uses of the Bible. We must also 
remember that the Bible has not been excluded 
from our Public Schools because of its Inherent 
character, hut stop has been put to the use of it as 
an infallible revelation which men must believe or be 
damned. The Bible as a book per se is not ex- 



AMERICAN EDUCATION 55 

eluded ; but the use of the Bible, as a handbook of 
religious instruction or as a part of a religious ex- 
ercise in a State School, that must be purely 
secular, is prohibited. The demand has been, 
and the practice has been, to use the Bible as 
the infallible Word of God, as the supernatural 
source of divine truth, as the supreme and final 
authority respecting all ideas and beliefs con- 
cerning God, duty, and destiny. The end sought 
by Bible- reading has been religious instruction. 
And it is this ^particular use of the Bible that is 
disallowed in State schools by the American 
Idea. 

The free use of the. Bible as literature, with 
no supernatural claims, for no doctrinal purpose, 
but within the general scope of other educational 
material, would never have raised any issue 
except on the part of extreme dogmatists. But 
when it is put forward as a supernatural reve- 
lation that must be believed, being used for 
religious and doctrinal purposes, it is this use 
of the Bible upon which the whole problem 
turns. 

The American parent, if loyal to the American 
Idea, necessarily takes this position : ^ ^ I am will- 



56 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN 

ing that my boy read the Genesis account of cre- 
ation freely as a bit of sublime Jewish cosmol- 
ogy ; but I contend that the State has no right 
to force him to read it as an infallible revelation 
or as part of a religious exercise. I am willing 
that he read the imprecatory psalm : ^ Let his 
children be fatherless, and his wife a widow ; let 
there be none to extend mercy to him ; neither 
let there be any favor shown his fatherless chil- 
dren/ — I am willing that he read this as he 
reads in Homer about the wrath of Achilles ; 
but I contend that the State has no right to force 
him to read these passages with the wider- 
standing that he must believe them divine or be 
damned. I am willing that he read the descrip- 
tion of the ^ spoiling of the Egyptians ' as a rec- 
ord of unjust deeds that were once common j but 
I contend that the State has no right to put this 
story before him with the manifest implication 
that God commanded the Israelites to steal. I 
am willing that he read about the extermination 
of the Canaanites as a leaf of ancient history j 
but I contend that the State has no right to 
compel him to read it and accept that barbarity 
as a part of divine revelation or be in danger 



AMERICAN EDUCATION 57 

of eternal x)^^iiishment. " It is said that other 
books with narrations of cruelty are allowed in 
the schools, but there is this vast difference : 
they are read freely, and not as the Word of 
God. 

The argument is sometimes put in this form by 
the opponents of the secular school : ^ ^ Shall the 
Chinese cling to the works of Confucius and 
Americans cast aside the Scrii^tures?" As a 
matter of fact, the Chinese do not consider the 
works of Confucius supernatural, while blind de- 
votion to Confucian texts is just what is the mat- 
ter with China to-day. Moreover, Americans are 
not going to cast aside the Scriptures. This 
is not the point at issue. The American State, 
in loyalty to its fundamental law, has decided 
to stop an unlawful use of the Bible as a divine 
revelation in its schools, which must be secular, 
but which are not therefore godless. 

Many contend that the Bible may be used in 
our schools as it formerly was, and now is in 
some localities, because it is not sectarian, but 
simply religious. This is the x^osition taken by 
Hon. Charles E. Skinner, State Superintendent 
of Public Instruction, >Tew York, in his Kst 



58 RELIGIOUS FREED 031 IN 

report (1903). The argument of Mr. Skinner 
and those who agree with him does not, however, 
touch the point. The secular school must be 
more than non-sectarian : it must be religiously 
neutral. Eeligious freedom means more than 
the absence of sectarian instruction : it means 
the absence of all religious exercises and theo- 
logical teachings. The Bible- reading may be 
non-sectarian (although this is unusual) ; but, if 
engaged in as a religious exercise, which is the 
custom, if the Bible is treated as a revelation, 
it is contrary to the spirit and law of the Secular 
State, however frequently this may have been 
done in the past. 

And, as a matter of fact, the Bible is virtually 
and necessarily made a sectarian book by those 
who use it, whether in church or school, — just as 
sectarian as those who read it. Because it has a 
great variety of teachings upon life and religion, 
it is the source of all the sects: this church uses 
and emphasizes one line of passages, while an- 
other church uses and emphasizes some other 
line of texts. All the sects have some Scriptu- 
ral warrant : no sect represents the whole Bible. 
This is obvious. Therefore, a Presbyterian, in 



AMERICAN" EDUCATION 59 

selecting and reading passages, will naturally 
bring the Bible to the support of his Presbyte- 
rianism, however fair he may try to be. These 
are the chapters familiar to him. Naturally, too, 
as one reads, he emphasizes the language so as 
to make prominent his own personal views. 
The TJniversalist will do the same. So also will 
the Jew. While the follower of Mr. Ingersoll 
(as has been done) will select passages that few 
religious people would like to have their chil- 
dren hear. Hence we claim that, however un- 
sectarian the noblest parts of the Bible may be, 
its use is sure to be sectarian, and so a violation 
of religious freedom in education. 

We hear it said that stopping such Bible-read- 
ings is really closing the fountain of civilization 
from which our fathers drew their inspiration. 
Now, without attempting to give any estimate 
of the Bible as a civilizing agent, we may safely 
say that our forefathers got whatever they did 
out of the Bible by a process very different from 
the Bible-reading which we are asked to have 
retained in our common school instruction or 
put into our Public Schools. What they got 
out of the Bible they obtained by a prolonged 



60 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN 

private study, not from the formal reading of a 
few isolated verses by the schoolmaster once a 
day during term. This form of argument does 
our forefathers injustice j and, were they able 
to speak to us, they would denounce the asser- 
tion that such Bible -readings were the foun- 
tains of their civilization. 

There are people who in view of the fact 
that the rising generation seems to be alarmingly 
ignorant of the Bible, demand that it be put 
back into the Public School, in order to cure 
this growing evil. The ignorance does exist, 
and it is a misfortune ; but the remedy proposed 
is unwise. Why not make a demand upon 
Christian parents that they do their duty in 
this respect as faithfully as our grandparents 
attended to their religious duties? Let the 
churches also be stirred to action. They are 
the special custodians and friends of the Bible. 
Since there are a hundred thousand pulpits and 
a million Sunday-school teachers engaged in 
enforcing the Scriptures in our land, it is folly 
to claim that ceasing to use it for religious pur- 
poses in the Public Schools is depriving our 
people of the Bible. 



AMERICAN EDUCATION 61 

We hear it said, also, tliat it is wrong for our 
Public Schools to teach the history of Csesar and 
rule out the history of Christ. But the story of 
Jesus' life, when taught as Caesar's life is taught, 
is not ruled out. It is only the dogmas about 
Jesus that are excluded j and, if such dogmas 
clustered about Csesar, they, too, would be ruled 
out. It is needless in the discussion of this sub- 
ject to consider the character of the Bible. It is 
unnecessary, for instance, to show that some of 
its ideas of nature are contrary to those taught 
the child by science, that some of its morals are 
barbarous, that its historical statements are some- 
times conflicting and incorrect. The whole 
question turns upon the fact that such Bible- 
reading as is demanded, being a religious exer- 
cise, is contrary to the spirit and law of the 
Secular State. The argument lies, not against 
the imperfect character of the Bible, but against 
the ecclesiastical use of it in a secular school. 

Doubtless, the strongest and most temperate 
argument for the use of the Bible in the Public 
Schools was made by Horace Mann in the Eighth 
and Twelfth Eeports of the Massachusetts Board 
of Education. Mr. Mann said all that can be 



62 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN 

said on that side, and he wrote with great clear- 
ness and earnestness. And, though we must all 
honor him as a most excellent man who did a 
monumental work for American education, yet 
it is evident, I think, to the student to-day that 
his argument fails to make good his thesis. 

It must be remembered that Horace Mann 
wrote more than half a century ago, before the 
secular character of our government was as clear 
to people as it is to-day. And, as we turn his 
pages, we see that he was fatally hampered 
by two considerations. He wished to commend 
popular education as far as possible to a prej- 
udiced public, especially sensititive at this 
point. He was willing to sacrifice a good deal to 
make the system successful as a whole. 

Again, the atmosphere of Mr. Mann's own 
life was filled with notions inherited from Puri- 
tan New England, some of which have since 
passed away ; but they kept him at that time 
from a clear apprehension of the essential char- 
acter of our secular government. He was two 
generations nearer the Mathers than we, and on 
this account he was unable to look upon this 
question as rationally as he would if alive to-day. 



AMERICAN EDUCATION 63 

His argument is pervaded with assumptions 
which he never would have made if he had fully 
gras]Ded the meaning of the secularization of the 
State, the great and beneficent historical move- 
ment which has given us the American Ideal 
and the American K"ation. 

Passing, however, from this point of view, it 
seems perfectly self-evident that such merely 
formal and fragmentary Bible- reading is neither 
just to the Bible nor beneficial to the pupil. It 
is using the Bible as a fetich, as a thing of magi- 
cal power, rather than as a record of truth and 
aspiration. Beading the Bible ^^ without com- 
ment" is the very worst kind of reading, — a 
practice sure to become a dead formality, a prac- 
tice that makes the Bible an object of supersti- 
tion. Our Puritan ancestors understood this so 
well that they would not have any such Bible- 
reading even in their church services. It would 
be difficult to find any one who was ever led to 
understand or love the Bible by such formal 
readings, '^without comment." We treat no 
other literature so foolishly. 

And, to produce deep religious impressions, 
there must be conditions which cannot be ob- 



64 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN 

tained at such a service in the ordinary school- 
room. Nothing can be worse than for a pupil, 
day after day, to sit unmoved through a relig- 
ious formality. Those who depend upon short 
and formal Bible-readings as an efiSicient means 
of religious culture lean upon a broken staff; 
and it is because we look upon religious culture 
as such a large and important interest that we 
enter our emphatic judgment against depen- 
dence upon that practice. 

The few most notable judicial decisions re- 
specting the use of the Bible in the Public 
Schools are deserving especial attention. And 
the starting-point may well be found in the 
opening sentence of Article 3 of the Ordinance 
of 1787 for the government of the Northwest 
Territory, — 

^^Eeligion, morality, and knowledge being 
necessary to good government and the happiness 
of mankind, schools and the means of education 
shall forever be encouraged. 



J? 



It has been claimed by men of distinction, 
and no doubt believed by many, that this pro- 
vision of the Ordinance of 1787 imposed a duty 
upon the States organized out of the territory 



AMERICAN EDUCATION 65 

north-west of the Ohio Eiver to teach religion in 
the Public Schools. It was said by some that, 
religion, morality, and knowledge being neces- 
sary to good government and the hapi)iness of 
mankind, schools aud the means of education 
must be made use of to teach religion, morality, 
and knowledge ; while others said that, the ex- 
tent of the meaning of the language is that, if 
schools and the means of education are forever 
encouraged, then religion, morality, and knowl- 
edge will inevitably follow, claiming that the 
first construction violates the idea of a purely 
Secular State, which is manifestly the spirit of 
the Federal Union. 

To find a warrant for religious instruction or 
regular Bible-reading in the language of this 
Ordinance is to misuse these words and give them 
an application not supported by logic or his- 
tory. 

(1) The men prominent in the direction of our 
general government at that time held very broad 
principles of religious liberty, and they under- 
stood the basic principle respecting the separa- 
tion of church and State. Their position is too 
well known to i)ermit us for a moment to sup- 



QQ RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN , 

pose that they had any such policy in mind as 
the advocates of Bible- reading in our schools 
claim. Moreover, the statement under discus- 
sion must be read in the light of other state- 
ments in the same document, such as the follow- 
ing : The object of the Ordinance is defined to 
be ^Ho extend the fundamental principles of civil 
and religious liberty, which form the basis whereon 
these republics^ their laws and constitutions^ are 
erected ' ' / Those who used this language about 
^ ^ religious liberty ' ' could not have meant that 
there should be compulsory religious instruc- 
tion in the schools, as is contended by those 
who argue for the use of the Bible in State 
schools. 

(2) The American Congress that formulated 
this document never assumed to possess a body 
of religious beliefe, and it never attempted to 
interfere in the management of ecclesiastical 
affairs. As it was not in possession of any relig- 
ion of its own to bestow, and as authority in re- 
ligious matters was not included among its 
powers, that Congress could not inject into one 
of its creations something that lay quite apart 
from its own being. It had no right, and it 



AMERICAN EDUCATION 67 

certainly never intended, to legislate in behalf 
of religious interests. Moreover, even if the 
members of that body had tried to do what is 
claimed, their action would have been null and 
void, because the act of the people of the colonies 
in calling them together conferred upon them 
no religious or ecclesiastical functions. 

It may seem quite needless to pay even pass- 
ing attention to this argument, which is like a 
pyramid set upon its apex. But some allusion 
to it is apparently still necessary j for there are 
among us a few educators who hark back to 
this inconclusive argument, while prominent 
clergymen are now and. then heard repeating the 
discredited propositions. Surely, a case that has 
to plead its cause with such ancient sophistries 
has no solid basis upon which to rest. 

In the Constitution of Ohio, however, the sub- 
stance of the text, just quoted from the Ordi- 
nance, was incorporated, without attempting 
any settlement of the dispute as to the meaning 
of the words used. For some years it was un- 
doubtedly considered by those in authority that 
the Bible was an essential part of the school 
curriculum, for it was commonly read in the 



68 RELIGIOUS FREED 031 IN 

opening exercises of the schools in that State 
until 1870. 

In that year the Board of Education of the 
City of Cincinnati passed resolutions forbidding 
further reading from the Bible, and immediately 
a storm arose upon the political horizon. 

A petition was filed in court by certain citi- 
zens of the municijDality x-raying for a decree 
commanding the School Board to rescind its ac- 
tion and restore the Bible to its former use in 
the schools j and the case was rested upon the 
ground above alluded to, that the law quoted 
above did really lay upon the government a posi- 
tive duty to teach religion in its schools. 

In the lower court a majority of the judges 
held that the relief should be granted and the 
Bible-readings should be resumed in the Public 
Schools. The case was taken to the Supreme 
Court by the Board of Education, where it was 
argued upon both sides by counsel eminent in 
their profession and of more than local reputation. 
Stanley Matthews, afterwards Attorney-general 
and one of the justices of the Supreme Court of 
the United States, appeared for the Board of 
Education ; and, although he i^rotested that he was 



AMERICAN EDUCATION 69 

a firm believer in the divine inspiration and in- 
fallibility of the Bible, he contended against the 
use of the book in the schools. And the Supreme 
Court unanimously held, in accordance with his 
contention, that the Board had the right to ex- 
clude the Bible ; and the resolutions were accordr 
ingly sustained. 

The question was presented to the Supreme 
Court of Wisconsin, in 1890, in the case of the 
State upon relation of "Weiss against the Edger- 
ton School Board. In that case it appeared 
that the King James' Version of the Bible was 
one of the regularly adopted text-books, and was 
read at the opening exercises of the various Pub- 
lic Schools. Certain citizens of the city of Edg- 
erton complained of the practice as being in 
violation of the provision of the Constitution of 
Wisconsin, that the schools should not be made 
use of for sectarian instruction j and they peti- 
tioned the Court for a mandamus to prevent it. 
It was claimed by the learned counsel for the 
School Board that the Christian religion had 
been embodied in the fundamental laws of^the 
American colonies, and that by virtue of the 
Ordinance of 1787 it became a part of the funda- 



70 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN 

mental law of the State of Wisconsin. The de- 
cision of the Court was unanimous against the 
claim of the Board, and a peremptory writ was 
ordered as prayed in the petition. 

In disposing of the case, the Court used the 
following language: ^^The reading of any ver- 
sion of the Holy Bible in the common schools 
as a text-book without restriction, although not 
accompanied by any comment by the instructor, 
is sectarian instruction within the meaning of 
Section 3 of Article X. of the Wisconsin Con- 
stitution, and is thereby prohibited ; nor is the 
prohibition removed by the fact that any child 
may withdraw from such school- room during 
such reading." 

In Michigan, notwithstanding the plain pro- 
vision of the fundamental law of the State that 
the legislature shall not compel any person to 
pay tithes, taxes, or other rates for the support 
of any minister of the gospel or teacher of re- 
ligion, the Bible is quite generally used in the 
morning exercises in the Public Schools, espe- 
cially in the rural districts. 

Mutterings of opposition were heard from time 
to time until in 1896 a committee of clergymen^ 



AMERICAN EDUCATION 71 

working under the auspices of the Chicago 
Woman's Educational Union, prepared a little 
book called '■ ' Eeadings from the Bible Selected 
for Schools," consisting of a large number of 
Scripture quotations arranged in groups j and 
the School Board of the City of Detroit adopted 
it for the schools of that city. 

A short time after its introduction a number 
of citizens commenced proceedings in the courts 
to restrain the practice on the ground that they 
were taxed for the supi)ort of a teacher of re- 
ligion, although the readings were without note 
or comment. The circuit court held that the 
objection was well taken, and granted the in- 
junction. 

The case was taken to the Supreme Court, 
where it was presented with fulness and ability ; 
but a majority of the Court held that the judg- 
ment of the lower court should be reversed, not 
upon the theory that the Ordinance of 1787 re- 
quired the teaching of religion, but upon the 
ground that the use of the book, ^^ Eeadings from 
the Bible," read without note or comment, did 
not constitute the reader a teacher of religion. 

These decisions are all very decisive in favor 



72 RELIGIOUS FREED 031 IN 

of the secular character of the Public School, 
although that of the Michigan Court seems to 
lack both judicial weight and civic wisdom. 

The Supreme Court of the State of IsTebraska 
has recently (Oct. 9, 1902) rendered a deci- 
sion on this subject in harmony with that given 
by the "Wisconsin Court. It is known as State 
v. Scheve. The facts are these : In a Public 
School in Gage County, which the children of 
Daniel Freeman attended, certain religious exer- 
cises were held daily, that consisted of prayer, 
singing of hymns, and the reading of passages 
from the Bible, — King James' Version. The 
point at issue was whether such exercises are 
contrary to the Constitution of the State. 

The Court in its decision first referred to these 
two provisions of the State Constitution: ^^All 
persons have a natural and indefeasible right to 
worship Almighty God according to the dictates 
of their own consciences. No person shall be 
compelled to attend, erect, or support any place 
of worship against his consent, and no preference 
shall be given by law to any religious society, 
nor shall any interference with the rights of 
conscience be permitted" (Art. I., Sect. 4). 



AMERICAN EDUCATION 73 

Abo : ^^1^0 sectarian instruction shall be allowed 
in any school or institution supported, in whole 
or in part, by the public funds set apart for 
educational purposes " (Art. YIIL, Sect. 11). 

The decision of the Court sustained the con- 
tention of Mr. Freeman, and the syllabus by 
the Court is as follows : ^^ Exercises by a teacher 
in a Public School in a school building, in school 
hours, and in the presence of the pupils, consist- 
ing of the reading of passages from the Bible, 
and in the singing of songs and hymns, and offer- 
ing prayer to the Deity in accordance with the 
doctrines, beliefs, customs, or usages of sectarian 
churches or religious organizations, is forbidden 
by the Constitution of this State. " It is a sig- 
nificant fact that the Court did not apparently 
deem it necessary to enter into an elaborate 
argument in support of its decision, taking it for 
granted that the general principle at issue is so 
widely accepted that it needed no extended dis- 
cussion. Eeference is made to the Wisconsin 
decision as thorough and conclusive : ^^ We 
think it, therefore, sufficient for our purpose to 
direct attention to that authority." 

In passing, it ought to be stated that the 



74 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN 

courts of final jurisdiction in a few States, nota- 
bly Maine, Massacliusetts, and Connecticut, have 
sustained tlie position that the teacher has the 
right under the constitutions of these States to 
read the Bible in the Public Schools ; and it is 
so read in many places in that part of our 
country. 

The situation in the State of Kew York is 
somewhat peculiar. In a general act relative 
to education passed in 1851, after a provision 
prohibiting the use of public funds in aid of 
schools connected with or supported by any re- 
ligious body, this language was used : ^ ^ But 
nothing herein contained shall authorize the 
board of education to exclude the Holy Script- 
ures without note or comment, or any selection 
therefrom, from any of the Public Schools pro- 
vided for in this act" (Chap. 386, Sect. 18). 
This permissive statute is still in force. In the 
city of New York the Board of Education has 
used the power here granted to require the read- 
ing of the Bible in the common schools. The 
reading of the Bible is still maintained in a 
majority of the 'State schools, although it has 
been abandoned in many places in recent years. 



AMERICAN ED UCA TION 75 

The State courts have never passed upon this 
question. 

Previous to 1894^ sectarian schools^ whose 
students passed the Eegents^ Examinations, re- 
ceived the regular per capita allowance from the 
annual income of the Literature Fund of the 
State (about $10,000 a year). To prevent this, 
the following language was used in the new 
constitution framed that year: '^Neither the 
State, nor any subdivision thereof, shall use 
its property or credit or any public money, or 
authorize or permit either to be used, directly 
or indirectly in aid or maintenance, other than 
for examination or inspection, of any school or 
institution of learning wholly or in part under 
the control or direction of any religious de- 
nomination, or in which any denominational 
tenet or doctrine is taught^' (Art. IX., Sect. 4). 
In reporting this matter to the Constitutional 
Convention of 1894, Hon. F. W. HoUs, in re- 
ferring to the apportionment of the income from 
the Literature Fund to sectarian as well as 
Public Schools, used these words: ^^This part 
of the States' assistance is, in our opinion, con- 
tary to sound principles of separation of church 



76 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN 

and State, and will be absolutely prohibited by 
the adoption of our proposed amendment. ' ' 

The two hopeful facts in the State of New 
York are these : a slowly growing tendency to 
discontinue the reading of the Bible in the 
Public SchoolS; while the small State aid to 
sectarian schools has been stopped. Whatever 
public funds find their way in that State to 
the hands of religious brotherhoods or church 
schools, it is in plain violation of both the con- 
titution and the statutes of the State. 

The decision of the Supreme Court of Wiscon- 
sin may well be called epoch-making. It stands 
as the clearest and most decisive deliverance so 
far made in our country on this subject. It made 
a profound imiDression ; it has had a very power- 
ful influence. While some of the narrower dog- 
matists in various churches at once condemned 
it as revolutionary and unchristian, still it has 
been widely accepted as a just decision, — as the 
only one that could be made in loyalty to the 
fundamental <;haracter of our government. There 
are many public men, especially clergymen, 
who do not accept the principles here set forth. 
Some eminent educators still contend for the 



AMERICAN EDUCATION 77 

old order. There are many Public Schools in 
which the Bible is still used. But the ten- 
dency all over our country is toward the accept- 
ance of the Wisconsin decision as an authorita- 
tive description of true Americanism. 

Two recent incidents (many similar ones might 
be cited) illustrate the truth that the national 
consciousness is becoming clear and strong in 
this precise direction. The attorney-general of 
the State of Montana, Hon. H. J. Haskell, has, 
in a recent decision, taken the same positions 
and af&rmed the same principles as those occu- 
pied and asserted by the Supreme Court of Wis- 
consin. In a recent sermon, Eev. Dr. Tennis S. 
Hamlin, of Washington, D.C., one of the most 
prominent clergymen of the Presbyterian Church, 
forcibly advocated the complete secularization of 
our schools in the line of what has here been 
written ; and he is only one of an ever- increas- 
ing cloud of witnesses to the wisdom and justice 
of this policy. 

A very large number of our teachers, — per- 
sons, too, of religious convictions and spiritual 
earnestness, — through a clearer recognition that 
the specific business of the Public Schools is the 



78 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN 

acquisition of knowledge, have already come to 
the conclusion, in no opposition to religion and 
in no unfriendliness toward the Bible, that the 
interests of these schools are best promoted by 
making no formal use of the Scriptures in them. 
So that common experience has, in large sections 
of our country, reached that practical conclu- 
sion which the courts have affirmed as the teach- 
ing of the fundamental laws of the land. How 
this result warrants the charge that these schools 
are godless is beyond comprehension. It is 
difficult to see how a bank is made godless by 
neglecting to compel a man to read a chapter in 
the Bible before he deposits his money. 

If there is any place which is really and pre- 
eminently godly, it is the Public School, where 
children of all sects, races, and conditions, meet 
upon absolute equality to acquire knowledge, to 
be trained in justice, fidelity, and universal 
fellowship, and to be inducted into the rights 
and sanctities of citizenship. God may not be 
there in any dogmatic definition, but, what is 
infinitely better, he is there in the heart of the 
teacher, and in the very atmosphere of the 
school- room j and how a formal reading of the 



AMERICAN . ED UCA TION 79 

Bible would bring him any nearer it would be 
hard to prove or explain. 

That ^we need more reverence in our youth, 
that deeper consecration ought to be inwrought 
with our educational methods, that our school- 
rooms ought to be lighted up by inspiring ideals, 
— all this is indeed true ; and these truths are 
insisted upon by the friends of the Secular State 
as much as by churchmen. But the wise educator 
sees that the formal reading of the Bible without 
comment, under the inevitable conditions of the 
ordinary school- rooms, is not the true method 
for the cultivation of these spiritual graces. 
And, while this practice exists and is depended 
upon as adequate, nothing more rational will be 
done. Just here has been our misfortune in the 
past. 

But a better day is coming for the Bible and for 
the pupil, for education and for religion. When 
the Public Schools no longer indulge in religious 
exercises and Bible-readings, which they cannot 
legally or successfully carry forward, then par- 
ents and churches, brought to a keen realization 
of their responsibilities, will engage much more 
actively in this precious work of religious train- 



80 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN 

ing, to wh-icli they have given but slight or in- 
adequate attention. As long as there was a 
formal use of the Bible in the Public Schools, 
the parent lazily felt that all was going well 
with the child, when really nothing of impor- 
tance was being done in this direction. As soon 
as the common school abandons this fruitless and 
unwise policy, then the parent will bestir himself 
to insure his child religious instruction and fa- 
miliarity with the Bible. He will see that the 
church is the proper institution to accomplish 
this work 5 and, whatever new machinery may be 
needed in order that it may be better done, he 
will make sure that it is provided. 

The result will be that parents will more 
fully appreciate the value of the church when 
they understand that it is engaged in doing 
something important for their child which the 
Public School cannot do, and this will lead to 
a more generous support of the church. On the 
other hand, the church, enriched and strength- 
ened by this new parental interest, and awakened 
to a keener consciousness of its own task, will 
prosper as never before. The church will take in 
hand the work of religious training, and carry 



A MERICAN, ED UCA TION 81 

it forward by larger metliods and in a more 
modern spirit. And all this will place religion 
before the community in a more attractive light, 
while it will bring into the fold of the church 
men and women not only better equipped for its 
service, but better prepared for all their duties 
in life. 

And the child, — what of him! He will un- 
derstand and love the Bible as never before, be- 
cause, instead of a formal and perfunctory read- 
ing forced upon him at an inopportune time, 
and too scant and fragmentary to kindle interest 
or be of use, — instead of this barren exercise, 
he will be sympathetically and thoroughly in- 
structed in Scripture at home and at church, so 
that what was once hated he will come to ap- 
preciate and be able to use. A new interest will 
grow up in him toward the church, because he 
will see that it has rendered him an invaluable 
service ; while religion, no longer forced upon 
him as a matter of compulsion in an uncongenial 
atmosphere at an inappropriate moment, will 
secure in him a more loving disciple by coming 
to him in the winsome instruction of an affection- 
ate parent or by the attractive teaching of a 
spiritual church. 



82 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM 

That is the best arrangement, for all interests 
and institutions, which keeps the Public School 
close to its special work and frees it from all 
other responsibilities, which commits religious 
instruction to those who are called of God to 
give it, and which leaves the Bible to make its 
way into the heart, not by compulsion and 
formality, but along the lines of persuasion 
which centre in home and church. 



THE RELIGIOUS MOTIVE AND 
HIGHER EDUCATION 



THE RELIGIOUS MOTIVE AND 
HIGHER EDUCATION 

Before the nineteenth century the founding 
of academies and colleges in America was al- 
most solely the product of religious interest and 
church enterprise. The academies and semina- 
ries so thickly strewn, especially over New Eng- 
land, were established by devout churchmen, in 
order to promote the Christian faith. In some 
instances, like the Roxbury Latin School and the 
Boston Latin School, civic enthusiasm was more 
prominent than ecclesiastical zeal. But as a 
rule, the impulse that lead to the organization of 
institutions of higher learning was distinctly and 
strongly religious, sometimes even warmly and 
narrowly denominational. 

A great many colleges, like Williams (1793) 
and Amherst (1821), had their origin in a desire 
to provide inducement and opportunity for 
young men to enter the ministry. In the early 
years, charity students in preparation for the 

85 



86 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN 

pulpit were common. Up to 1850, in these and 
other similar institutions; a very large propor- 
tion of the graduates entered the ministry, while 
many became missionaries in the Great West or 
in foreign lands. In recent years the tendency 
in these schools has been decidedly away from 
clerical pursuits. The percentage of graduates 
who now become ministers has fallen almost to 
the vanishing point, as low as 5 per cent, in 
some cases. A distinct missionary enthusiasm 
led to the founding of some colleges. Here was 
the origin of Dartmouth, 1769, — where young 
Indians were to be civilized and Christianized. 

A very positive denominational interest pro- 
duced such institutions as Brown (Baptist) in 
1765; Kings' — now Columbia University — 
(Episcopal) in 1754 ; Dickinson (Methodist 
Episcopal) in 1783 ; and Bowdoin (Congrega- 
tional) in 1794. A more intense interest, reach- 
ing what may be called the sectarian spirit, 
operated in establishing Princeton (Presbyterian) 
in 1746 and Eutgers (Dutch Eeform) in 1770. 

There is a clear distinction between denomina- 
tional enthusiasm and a sectarian spirit. The 
former is more open, progressive, and tolerant : 



AMERICAN EDUCATION 87 

the latter is more narrow, dogmatic, and exclu- 
sive. The one works for its own church, but 
with an eye to the larger interests of the whole 
Christian world : the other stands apart from 
mankind in general with the assumption that its 
creed alone is true, and its ambition is to bring 
all others to its peculiar form of faith. The de- 
nominational leader feels that he is only one of 
the servants of the Lord, and he is willing to co- 
operate with the others in bringing in the king- 
dom of God. The sectarian zealot is sure that 
he is the chief, if not the only true, follower of 
the Master, and it is his duty not to co-operate 
with others, but to convert them to his dogma. 
All this is stated not in condemnation, but in 
mere description of states of mind and policies 
of action which are clearly distinct and often 
radically different. This may be illustrated, 
without indulging in invidious comparisons, by 
looking a moment at two institutions such as 
Knox College (Congregational) and Albion Col- 
lege (Methodist Episcopal). In the former 
there is a strong denominational feeling, but it 
has never reached the point of intensity that 
amounts to sectarianism. In the latter institu- 



88 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN 

tion the obvious and declared object is to make 
Metbodists. So Tufts College was founded to 
serve the interests of the TJniversalist denomina- 
tion, but with no assumption that other churches 
have a radically false interpretation of the Chris- 
tian life. On the other hand, a very decided 
sectarian spirit led the Seventh Day Adventists 
to organize Battle Creek College ] for they hold 
that on matters of most vital importance they 
are right and other churches are wrong. 

The fifty years from 1820 to 1870 may be 
called the blossom-time of denominational and 
sectarian activity in education in America. In 
this period of the great expansion of our national 
life a remarkable number of institutions of 
higher learning came into existence. The vari- 
ous sects in our country were extremely active 
in founding colleges. About two hundred and 
fifty institutions, bearing the name of college or 
University, came into existence in the United 
States during this period! Some thirty of these 
were Eoman Catholic. Besides the strictly State 
institutions (about fifty), nearly all of these owe 
their existence to the zeal, enterprise, and gener- 
osity of churchmen. In a great majority of 



AMERICAN EDUCATION 89 

cases — in fact, with very few exceptions — the 
real founders were clergymen. 

Among these institutions the one farthest 
removed from the denominational or sectarian 
spirit, Washington University (1852), was cre- 
ated by a clergyman, a man of deep and 
earnest piety, — Eev. Dr. William G. Eliot. 
Some of these colleges, with greatest theologi- 
cal breadth, have been intensely religious in 
their general spirit, and they have been sup- 
ported by the self-sacrifice of religious people : 
Oberlin, which was made the home of urgent 
spirituality by Charles G. Finney ; Antioch, 
which rejoices in many precious memories of 
Horace Mann j Berea, inclusive in spirit, but 
carrying a definite religious impulse hand in 
hand with the treasures of learning to the 
mountain whites of the Appalachian region. 

But a majority of these institutions were 
founded to serve and foster church interests, 
and they have partaken in the past more or 
less of the sectarian spirit : Pennsylvania Col- 
lege (1832), devoted to the Lutheran church j 
Milton College (1867), equally devoted to the 
cause of the Seventh Day Baptists ; Hobart 



90 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN 

College (1825); maintained with an eye single 
to the interests of the Episcopal church j Chris- 
tian University (Canton, Mo., 1853) is a product 
of the zeal of the Disciples j Cumberland Uni- 
versity (1842), founded to provide higher edu- 
cation for the Cumberland Presbyterians ; and 
Mercer University (1837), organized by South- 
ern Baptists to promote the interests of their 
particular church. These and other similar 
facts show how powerfully the educational im- 
pulse and interest of Americans worked along 
denominational, and even sectarian, lines during 
the middle decades of the last century. 

The educational impulse did not, however, 
always work, even in the nineteenth century, 
through the hands of clergymen or in behalf of 
church interests. Thomas Jefferson, in found- 
ing the University of Virginia (1819), did an 
original and influential work. He was not only 
a layman, but a man of anti- clerical, though not 
anti- religious, cast of mind. He was the first 
great American to work conspicuously for 
higher education outside church lines and with 
no specific reference to the cause of religion. 
His example in time had a profound influence. 



AMERICAN. EDUCATION 91 

especially on the educational policies of the 
States formed out of the Northwest Territory. 

Later two other men (very different in the 
spirit of their lives) contributed to the same 
movement of education away from ecclesiastical 
channels : Stephen Girard, who insisted that the 
institution which he founded should be free from 
religious instruction and clerical sui^ervision ; 
and Peter Cooper, who, in organizing his In- 
stitute, was moved by philanthropic rather 
than ecclesiastical interests. 

During the last generation a great change 
has occurred in the educational impulses, ideals, 
and methods of the American people. Since 
about 1870, besides the State Universities and 
the technical schools, like the Massachusetts In- 
stitute of Technology and the Case School of 
Applied Sciences (distinctly secular in charac- 
ter), a half-dozen great schools have arisen that 
indicate the direction and character of the domi- 
nant movement in our educational world, — Cor- 
nell, Johns Hopkins, Tulane, Chicago, Leland 
Stanford, Jr., and Clark. 

The spirit animating the founders of these 
Universities has been quite unlike that which 



92 ' RELIGIOUS FREED 031 IN 

stirred the men wlio built up Amlierst and Trin- 
ity, and radically different from that which pre- 
sided over the early history of Princeton and 
Eutgers. The impelling motive has not been 
sectarian in any of these institutions, not even 
mildly denominational in but one. It may be 
called religious, but religious only in a very 
large and inclusive sense. The clerical ideal 
and enthusiasm which once created everything 
and controlled everything in the realm of edu- 
cation have had practically nothing to do with 
the organization or administration of these great 
institutions. 

But denominational enterprise and sectarian 
zeal have not ceased to exist in the educational 
world of America. It is a remarkable fact that 
during the last twenty-five years about eighty 
schools, calling themselves colleges or Universi- 
ties, have come into existence that frankly take 
some church name ! They have been estab- 
lished primarily to maintain a particular form 
of theological belief. And it is an equally re- 
markable fact that the total attendance of stu- 
dents, of what they themselves call the collegiate 
grade (which of course is far below the standard 



AMERICAN ED UCA TION 93 

of our best schools), is, in these eighty institu- 
tions about four thousand, — approximately, an 
average of fifty to a college ! Thirty-three have 
less than twenty- five so-called collegiate stu- 
dents ! Altogether, these eighty schools have 
only about as many collegiate students as Har- 
vard has in its literary department. These facts 
show that, while the denominational motive in 
education has not ceased to operate, it has spent 
its force. 

It throws a significant light upon these facts 
to remember that a very large proportion of 
these schools are located in the South and the 
Far West j and they represent, not the need or 
desire of the local community, but the intrusion 
of enterprising missionary agents, who in many 
cases have joined hand with speculators in town 
sites. So that the denominational enthusiasm 
is not really as strong as this multiplication of 
institutions would indicate. 

Some Conclusions. 
(1) The work of higher education in America 
previous to 1870, the organization and adminis- 
tration of colleges and Universities, was very 



94 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN 

largely in the hands of clergymen ; and these 
institutions, as a rule, had very close relations 
with some denomination, while they were com- 
monly supported because of the aid which they 
contributed to religion in general and to a cer- 
tain form of theology in particular. The col- 
lege was founded as the means to a specific end, 
and that end was chiefly the training of ministers 
and the good of a particular church. 

Before 1850, Horace Mann was conspicuous as 
one of the few laymen who, up to that time, 
had done distinguished service for the cause of 
public education. And as late as 1860 the man 
who had accomplished more than any one else 
in developing the ideals of University training 
in our country was a clergyman, Eev. Dr. 
Henry P. Tappan. Much of the work done for 
education in the "West by the States themselves 
in those early times was inspired and directed 
by ministers. This was notably the case in 
Michigan, where John D. Pierce, a minister, 
did a great work, not only in helping to create 
the. State University (1837), but in organizing 
the common school system and in pleading for the 
professional instruction of teachers in a Kormal 



AMERICAN EDUCATION 95 

School, which was established in 1852, — the first 
west of the Hudson Eiver. 

(2) When the new commonwealths began to 
come into existence in the great Northwest, these 
States took up the problems of education from 
a fresh point of view and in an original spirit. 
The statesmen who led in these matters (and 
among them were some men of large and noble 
ideals) had a free hand such as nation-builders 
have seldom enjoyed. 

There were special influences at work favor- 
able not only to institutions of higher educa- 
tion, but to institutions of a non- clerical and 
secular character. In the first place, such mat- 
ters as religious liberty and the separation of 
church and State were at the front in the public 
mind ; and very clear ideas had come into promi- 
nence, which are embodied in the constitutions 
of these States. In the next place, the public 
lands, set apart for educational purposes by the 
acts of Congress organizing these States, made 
the creation of colleges and Universities an easy 
and a necessary undertaking. And, in the last 
place, the influence of Jefi'erson, to which al- 
lusion has been made, was of considerable 



96 RELIGIOUS FREED 031 IN 

weight. These and other causes brought into 
existence the State Universities that have grown 
to very large proportions and very great in- 
fluence. 

These State institutions, of necessity, followed 
the secular character of the States creating them. 
Being maintained by the whole people for the 
whole people, these schools must be neutral re- 
specting matters of dogma and rite. This was 
not realized at once, but a common movement 
toward the position was inevitable : it was im- 
plicated in the situation. Here was a new type 
of educational institution, created not by cler- 
gymen for the church, but by statesmen for the 
commonwealth. It received support from all 
the people, and it served the interests of all 
classes. It was not fostered by a single group of 
churchmen to further the interests of one denom- 
ination. With a broader basis, a larger spirit, 
and a more ample supjoort, no wonder that the 
State Universities have grown faster than the 
neighboring denominational colleges. They have 
not only developed in response to the logic of 
the situation a non- clerical and secular ideal 
and method of education in themselves, but they 



AMERICAN EDUCATION 97 

have also led tliese other schools to decided prog- 
ress in the same direction. 

The change that has come over educational 
affairs in the Central West, largely due to these 
State Universities, is well indicated by the simple 
comparison of the number of students in them 
and in denominational colleges in the same 
States. In the State University of Iowa, 1,600 
students : in the largest denominational institu- 
tion in Iowa, less than 300 collegiate students. 
In the State University of Minnesota, 3, 500 stu- 
dents : in the largest denominational institution 
in Minnesota, 150 collegiate students, and only 
800 in the eight church schools of college rank. 
In the State University of IS'ebraska, 2,400 stu- 
dents : in the largest denominational institution 
in Nebraska, 150 collegiate students. The fig- 
ures for Kansas are 1, 200 and 200. In the State 
University of Michigan, 4, 000 ; and, in the largest 
denominational institution in Michigan, some 
225 collegiate students, about 800 in the eight 
church schools. In the two great Universities 
in California, State and Leland Stanford, Jr., 
non-sectarian, there are over 5, 000 students : in 
the ten denominational institutions of higher 



98 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN 

learning in California, some 800 students of col- 
lege rank. These facts do not discredit the 
work of denominational colleges, but they do 
show the present strong tendency in favor of 
State Universities. 

(3) It is obvious that the educational tendency 
to-day is overwhelmingly toward non-clerical 
and non-sectarian institutions. And in addition 
to the influence of State Universities, just men- 
tioned, it must be borne in mind that the spirit 
and attitude of Harvard University have been 
potent factors in bringing about the emancipa- 
tion of education in America from theological 
limitations and ecclesiastical bonds. For nearly 
a century that institution has stood against sec- 
tarianism in earnest advocacy of religious free- 
dom in education. 

Many small colleges, that were once decidedly 
denominational, such as Eutgers, Bowdoin, Ober- 
lin, Knox, Hamilton, and Beloit, now claim to 
be non-sectarian. The religious spirit has not 
been abandoned in these institutions, but secta- 
rian zeal has been outgrown, — a significant and 
hopeful condition. Many others, like Yale, Co- 
lumbia, Smith, and Western Reserve, that still 



AMERICAN EDUCATION 99 

have very close relations with certain churclies, 
have become practically non-sectarian, but with- 
out becoming non- religious. This tendency is 
forcibly expressed in the fact that laymen are 
presidents of Yale and Princeton. Probably as 
remarkable and significant a fact as can be 
found in this connection is the movement toward 
the non-sectarian position of theological schools, 
— fully reached at Harvard, while Union 
Theological Seminary has become interdenomi- 
national. 

(4) What does all this really mean to the 
ministry? to the church? to religion? to the 
college? to the State? These are questions of 
profound importance. And it is an encouraging 
circumstance that hopeful answers can be truly 
made to them all. 

There may be here a loss of certain positions 
and privileges once enjoyed by the clergjmian. 
But these changes really represent gains to him 
and to the community. He may well rejoice 
that the area of educational interest and 
capacity has extended far beyond the clerical 
profession, and that his own hands are now left 
free for other and more pressing duties. And 

'LcfC. 



100 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN 

the community is better off in having others do 
this work as specialists, while the change enables 
the minister to do his work better as a specialist. 

The disappearance of the clergyman from edu- 
cational prominence does not mean disrespect 
for him or indifference to religion. It means 
simply a clearer recognition of the secular char- 
acter of the State and of the need of specializa- 
tion in both directions, while it also represents a 
wider interest in education. 

These transformations in the educational 
world are advantageous to religion and to the 
church. They help to strip piety of narrowness, 
while they relieve the church of many heavy 
burdens. Eeligion puts off its sectarian zeal, 
and becomes more human and more spiritual. 
The church, in withdrawing from the tasks of 
sectarian education, now has all its energies for 
the things of the spirit, that are its special and 
peculiar contribution to the enrichment and 
progress of mankind. The religious motive re- 
mains, but it operates in broader channels and 
flows in other directions. Men are not less re- 
ligious, but religion is less dogmatic. 

The college is not destitute of piety because 



AMERICAN EDUCATION 101 

clergymen are at present seldom professors and 
courses in ^' Christian Evidences " have vanished 
from the curriculum. This non-sectarian edu- 
cation is profoundly religious in the best sense, 
when really efficient education, because it neces- 
sarily deals with the inherent spiritualities of 
life. And the very fact that the instructor has 
no clerical garb or sectarian intent, being simply 
a man among men, often makes the religious im- 
port of the facts handled more vital and impres- 
sive. The intellectual product of the class-room 
and laboratory solely devoted to biology is obvi- 
ously greater than where instruction in dogma 
is added and conformity to creed is demanded. 
And the religious fruitage will in the end un- 
doubtedly be superior. 

These changes have been advantageous to the 
State. It is good for the State to stand apart 
from all the theological disputes and sectarian 
controversies of its various classes. It is good 
for the State to be engaged actively in pouring 
out its treasures and exerting its energies for the 
development of all its citizens with no other 
object in view than efficient citizenship. It is 
good for the American State to demonstrate to 



102 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM 

the world that the church can not only live, but 
prosper more abundantly, when left free from 
governmental patronage ; and that education 
becomes more effective when freed from church 
bonds and sectarian zeal, and enabled to devote 
itself to the simple but supreme task of per- 
fecting the humanity of man. 



EELIGION IN DENOMINATIONAL 
INSTITUTIONS 



RELIGION IN DENOMINATIONAL 
INSTITUTIONS 

There are in the United States upwards of 
five hundred institutions of higher education 
that bear the name college or University. 
After setting aside the Catholic and the State 
schools (approximately 70 and 80 respectively), 
350 are left ; and of these about 300 have been 
and are still closely connected with some Protes- 
tant denomination. They were founded and 
have been supported to educate the ministers 
and promote the interests of some particular 
church. About 100 of these are very small 
schools, with less than 100 collegiate students 
(probably less than 4,000 such students in all 
of them) f and they hardly deserve to rank as 
colleges. 

The remaining 200 institutions fall into two 
divisions of about equal size. About 100 
frankly report themselves as denominational, 
while about the same number call themselves 

105 



106 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN 

non-sectarian. These institutions with definite 
church relations are widely scattered geographi- 
cally, and they represent almost every form of 
Protestant faith. Among them may be men- 
tioned such colleges as Carleton (Congregational, 
Minnesota), Concordia (Lutheran, Wisconsin), 
Bates (Free Baptist, Maine), Hobart (Episcopal, 
New York), Allegheny (Methodist, Pennsyl- 
vania), Wake Forest (Baptist, North Carolina), 
Buchtel (Universalist, Ohio), Washington and 
Jefferson (Presbyterian, Pennsylvania), and such 
Universities as Eochester (Baptist, New York), 
Lawrence (Methodist, Wisconsin), St. Lawrence 
(Universalist, New York), De Pauw (Methodist, 
Indiana), Kentucky (Disciple), Lincoln (Pres- 
byterian, Pennsylvania), and Susquehanna (Lu- 
theran, Pennsylvania). In nearly all these in- 
stitutions compulsory attendance on daily chapel 
exercises (usually held in the morning and oc- 
cupying some fifteen minutes) is the rule. This 
is what might be expected, as they are the 
product of a definite denominational enthusiasm, 
and they exist to propagate a certain form of 
religious belief. 

In the main, the chapel exercises in these 



A3IERICAN EDUCATION 107 

schools have undergone few changes in form and 
spirit. And yet more attractive music has been 
added in most of them, and responsive reading 
of the Psalms and repetition in concert of the 
Lord's Prayer have recently come into use in 
many. In only a few colleges of this class are 
there paid chaplains. Members of the faculty 
(usually there are several ordained ministers 
among the professors) conduct the religious 
services. In a large majority of these institu- 
tions church attendance on Sunday is required, 
either in the college chapel or at some neighbor- 
ing church. The Universalist colleges leave 
church attendance free, but maintain com- 
pulsory chapel services. 

A few of these institutions present interesting 
and exceptional features. Cumberland Univer- 
sity, Tennessee (Cumberland Presbyterian), 
bravely leaves attendance on both chapel and 
church perfectly free, but secures the presence 
of 90 per cent, of the students. At Drake 
University, Des Moines, la. (Disciple), — with 
1,850 students in all departments, — attendance 
at daily chapel is voluntary, but expected ; and 
85 per cent, of the students are usually present. 



108 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN 

The changes recently made in the services at 
Drake are reported to be ^^in the direction of 
less severity and seriousness, but more joyous 
and educational.'^ In one Congregational col- 
lege (Iowa) voluntary attendance was substituted 
for compulsory some thirteen years ago j and 
two-thirds of the students are reported as being 
present. The president adds, ^^ There is be- 
lieved to be an improvement in all lines leading 
to normal religious living," — a hopeful state- 
ment in many ways. It is interesting to note 
that in two large institutions (Boston University 
and Syracuse University), with very definite re- 
ligious spirit and in close relation with the 
Methodist church, attendance at chapel is vol- 
untary, and yet a large number of students are 
regularly present. Probably the fact that these 
are comparatively new institutions accounts 
somewhat for the voluntary system. 

At Hardin College, Mexico, Mo. (200 stu- 
dents), a Baptist school, chapel exercises were 
suspended recently for a year as an experiment. 
But the students themselves were not satisfied. 
The services at present are evidently very human 
and practical, with a survey of current events 



AMERICAN EDUCATION 109 

once a month. The spirit of Hardin College is 
evidently quite different from that of a Presby- 
terian college in Pennsylvania, whose president 
writes : ^ ^ All students attend chapel. We do 
not require it ; but it is distinctly understood 
that a student who does not care to attend is 
not wanted here, l^o objection has ever been 
made ' ' ! The reason is obvious. 

In these denominational colleges more or less 
religious instruction is given as a rule. Courses 
in Bible study are provided. But various 
broadening tendencies have been at work even 
here. Some institutions have either wholly 
abandoned or materially curtailed these studies. 
What were once compulsory have in others be- 
come elective ; while the spirit that pervades 
this department, where it still remains, is much 
more catholic and progressive than in former 
years. 

There is another point in this connection of 
decided interest. It is the fact that in some of 
the more sectarian schools of this class the chapel 
exercise has been more or less secularized. The 
daily meeting is more and more utilized, as one 
University president puts it, ^^as an opportu- 



110 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN 

nity for general college business of interest to 
students " ! It has lost much of its formal sanc- 
timonious and theological character, and it has 
become a place for college announcements and 
general remarks, — less a religious exercise and 
more an educational gathering. This tendency 
is almost everywhere at work to-day. In many 
cases, discussion of current topics is a common 
feature of the chapel exercise, even in these de- 
nominational institutions. It may be questioned 
whether this change is helpful to religious cult- 
ure, but it is certainly a significant change. 

The other group of one hundred colleges and 
Universities (as a rule larger and older than 
those that we have just been considering and 
generally as denominational as these in their 
origin and early history) report themselves as 
non-sectarian. But this term is quite inade- 
quate in this connection. It is neither felicitous 
nor descriptive. Many of these institutions still 
have a decided theological bias. They are not 
neutral on the subject of dogma, nor are they 
hospitable to all form of religious belief. The 
atmosphere in many of them is positively un- 
friendly to Jews, Catholics, Agnostics, Univer- 



A31ERIGAN EDUCATION m 

salists, and Uuitarians. The term as used simply 
means that these schools stand for the central 
Orthodox views of religion, — non-sectarian only 
in the sense that the Y. M. O. A. is non-sectarian. 
They are interdenominational ; that is, Baptists, 
Methodists, Congregationalists, and others in 
general agreement with these religious bodies 
are all treated hospitably, and only the funda- 
mentals of Orthodoxy are emphasized. Some 
better term is needed in this connection, though 
it is difficult to supply one that just fits the case : 
the word ^^ secular" does not describe them, 
much less does ^^non-religious." 

Of these one hundred so-called non-sectarian 
institutions, about one-half have not only a very 
definite religious spirit, but a very decided theo- 
logical atmosphere. Princeton is strongly Pres- 
byterian : so is Union, — probably as much so 
as Lake Forest that frankly ranks itself Presby- 
terian. Oberlin calls itself non-sectarian, and 
yet it is as fully pervaded with the denomina- 
tional spirit as Trinity. Brown, though claiming 
to be non-sectarian, is probably as much of 
a Baptist institution as Colgate or Eochester. 
Bryn Mawr is as definitely devoted to the in- 



112 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN 

terests of the Friends, though it calls itself nou- 
sectarian, as Syracuse University is devoted to 
the cause of the Methodist church, which it 
openly claims to be. Bowdoin is definitely, 
though not narrowly, Congregational : so are 
Amherst, Beloit, Mount Holyoke, and Knox. 
They no more deserve this term than Hobart, 
Bates, Allegheny, and Olivet, which frankly 
keep certain denominational names. Cumber- 
land University, an institution founded by the 
Cumberland Presbyterians, is administered with 
more breadth of spirit than many of these 
schools, attendance on chajiel and church being 
voluntary, as has just been stated, and it is more 
deserving of the title non -sectarian in some re- 
spects than the group of colleges named above \ 
and yet it does not assume to take it. 

That these institutions call themselves non- 
sectarian is, however, a significant accommoda- 
tion to the spirit of the times j and the truth is 
that they have made commendable progress 
toward freedom in religion. But the fact must 
be borne in mind that they are not theologically 
neutral, but committed to a definite doctrinal 
position. This is not stated by way of criticism, 



AMERICAN EDUCATION 113 

but only for the purpose of accurate description. 
Some people tliink that they are non-sectarian 
when they allow their neighbors liberty respect- 
ing the mere details of belief; but a school is 
made really non-sectarian, not by its attitude to 
the incidental features of theology, but by its in- 
clusive policy and appreciative spirit in refer- 
ence to the fundamentals of religion. 

In these fifty so-called non-sectarian institu- 
tions with decided theological character, to 
which reference has just been made, attendance 
on daily chapel exercises is, as a rule, compul- 
sory. In most of them attendance at church on 
Sunday is required, either in college chapel or 
neighboring church. Some, like Amherst and 
Williams, have college churches separate from 
the village church of the same denomination. 
Students, however, are generally allowed to fol- 
low the wishes of their parents. In Eockford 
College, Illinois, for women, compulsory church 
attendance is imposed by the students them- 
selves. Certainly, institutions with such rigid 
rules and such definite ideals strongly enforced 
are hardly entitled to the name ^'non-sectarian." 

In about 25 colleges and Universities like La 



114 RELIGIOUS FREED 031 IN 

Fayette College, Alabama, Washington Uni- 
versity (broadly non- sectarian from tlie begin- 
ning), St. Louis, Boston University, Bryn 
Mawr, Smith, and Barnard, chapel exercises are 
held daily ; but attendance is voluntary, from 20 
per cent to 80 per cent, of the students being 
present. ^ these and kindred institutions forced 
attendanc at church on Sunday is the exception. 
Some ^^ our Universities (not State institu- 
tions), a N- among our oldest institutions, once 
definitely denominational, like Harvard and 
Yale, but the larger number more recently es- 
tablished, like Cornell, Leland Stanford, Jr., 
Johns Hopkins, Clark, and Tulane (these never 
even denominational), occupy a truly non-sec- 
tarian position, what may better be called a 
position of religious neutrality, — hospitable to 
religion, but free from theological bias. In 
these institutions a chapel exercise is maintained 
(daily in a majority) ; and in some of these 
other regular religious services are held, but, as 
a rule, attendance is voluntary. The spirit 
is very broad and inclusive. There is more 
than toleration : there is large liberty and wide 
appreciation. What is done in the direction 



AMERICAN EDUCATION 115 

of religious cultui-e by these institutions, with 
the exception of Yale, will be described in a 
separate chapter. 

Yale University presents a very interesting 
example of religious evolution. It was created 
by a deep religious impulse. It has f r many 
years been the home of a very def.. fce theo- 
logical spirit and ideal. During the L^'^ieteenth 
century the conservatives of New Er'^%nd re- 
garded it and rejoiced in it as the d\: nder of 
their faith. Its present situation shows how 
the policy of an institution may be broadened, 
while at the same time its religious life may be 
enriched and deepened. 

Yale still maintains compulsory daily chapel 
for the students of the college proper. Those in 
other departments are not obliged to attend, but 
the college chapel is open to them ; and many 
are present at the Sunday morning preaching 
service, but not at the daily prayers. In the 
college proper students must attend the college 
church on Sunday morning or some other neigh- 
boring church approved by their parents. Here 
the compulsory policy is maintained, but it is 
administered with so much breadth and inclu- 



116 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN 

siveness that better results than usual are se- 
cured. 

The following statement, from the secretary 
of the University, Eev. Anson Phelps Stokes, 
Jr., a man deeply interested in religion and 
thoroughly committed to freedom and catholic- 
ity, is of importance : — 

''There is an acting pastor of the College 
Church, whose main duty is to preside at the 
Communion Service, held on the first Sunday 
of each month. He also keeps regular consul- 
tation hours, when students may talk with him 
personally. The conduct of the morning prayers 
is, however, left to eight ofiScers of the Uni- 
versity, chosen by the President. They are 
most of them laymen in close touch with the 
student body. 

''I cannot describe in detail the changes 
which have taken place in the last twenty -five 
years. There has, however, been a most marked 
improvement in the last five years. This has 
been due to several causes. In the first place, 
the men who conduct prayers are men with 
sufficiently good voices to be heard all through 
the building. Then, too, there is a regular 



AMERICAN EDUCATION 117 

form of service which has the marks both of 
simplicity and dignity. It has been found that 
set forms of prayer, taken either from the Book 
of Common Prayer or other collections, are pre- 
ferred by the students in the long run. 

'^I should perhaps add here that one of the 
most vital forces for good in the University is 
the preaching service on Sunday. Twenty or 
thirty years ago it was the custom to draw 
almost entirely from members of the College 
Faculty and the College Pastor for this preach- 
ing service. Now we get the strongest men 
from all denominations, Congregationalists, Epis- 
copalians, Unitarians, and others. I think it 
can be said with truth that the majority of 
students enjoy the service and get great help 
from it. I know of nothing more stimulating 
anywhere than the Sunday service at Yale, as 
it is at present conducted. The President of 
the University, a layman, always presides, as he 
does also at morning prayers ; and the service 
is conducted by the visiting preacher. We 
make a special point of having the sermon brief, 
the regular time being from twenty to twenty- 
five minutes. It is found that the simpler the 



118 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN 

sermon and the more direct the appeal, the more 
helpful. The morning preacher also keeps con- 
sultation hours Sunday afternoon. This gives 
an opportunity to men who are in difficulty or 
doubt to have a good straight talk with a man 
of broad experience. There has been the most 
marked improvement in the past five or six 
years in the demeanor of men at all exercises in 
the chapel; and there are few men on the 
Faculty at Yale who do not believe that the ser- 
vices as at present conducted are a powerful 
moral and religious force in the community. '^ 

The great colleges for women in our country 
are Christian in origin and spirit, — Mount Hol- 
yoke, Wellesley, Smith, Yassar, and Bryn Mawr. 
But what there was of sectarian spirit in the 
earliest founded has largely been eliminated. A 
competent authority (Mary Breese Fuller) has 
interestingly described their present religious 
conditions : — 

^^If there is any small difference in the out- 
ward manifestation of the religious life between 
the colleges for men and those for women, the 
latter institutions show it more spontaneously, 
with more individuality. Two facts illustrate 



AMERICAN EDUCATION 119 

this point. Attendance at church and chapel 
exercises is in most cases required of college men. 
The majority of college women are not required 
to attend the same exercises. Consequently, full 
benches in Bryn Mawr or Wellesley represent 
voluntary expression of this side of college 
spirit. Again, the majority of men's colleges 
have an identical basis for their Christian work. 
The principal student religious organizations in 
each college are affiliated with the intercolle- 
giate Y. M. C. A. and the World's Student Fed- 
eration. But of the largest women's colleges 
each has a different basis for its religious associa- 
tion, only one of which is afifi.liated with the 
general federation. Which of the two situations 
is most desirable is a matter for discussion else- 
where. 

'^The official religious life is much the same 
in colleges of all kinds the world over. In- 
variably there is a morning chapel service. A 
service on Sunday afternoon or a week-day 
evening is held in addition, addressed by mem- 
bers of the faculty or speakers from a distance. 
Yassar and Wellesley have their Sunday morn- 
ing service at home, with a variety of distin- 



120 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN 

guislied preacliers ; but Mount Holyoke, Bryn 
Mawr, and Smith, where ^ gown and town ' are 
close together, share in the ordinary local church 
services. The loyalty to the official services 
varies according to the leader and the conven- 
ience of the chapel site. The college which has 
known but one president is naturally most re- 
sponsive to its services. On the other hand, the 
college authorities are, as a rule, in sympathy 
with the religious work of the students. They 
are consulted in regard to its development, are 
members of the organizations, and sometimes 
conduct Normal, Bible, or Mission Study classes. 
One president plans to make the subject of his 
vesper talks the same as those of the class prayer- 
meetings on Sunday evening." 

Indications of Progeess. 

1. There has been in the past generation a 
marked movement among denominational col- 
leges and Universities away from the sectarian 
spirit toward an interdenominational position. 
It is a significant fact that a hundred of these 
institutions, some of the oldest and many of 
the largest, report themselves as non-sectarian. 



AMERICAN EDUCATION 121 

They have not reached complete religious free- 
dom or theological neutrality, but they have 
made notable progress in this direction. More- 
over, in nearly all of those which keep some 
church name or affiliation there has been a 
commendable broadening of spirit and ideal, so 
that almost everywhere students of different 
faiths are not made uncomfortable, but are 
treated with consideration. The institutions 
more recently created by denominational en- 
thusiasm have, as a rule, been given a broader 
policy than was formerly allowed, — a hopeful 
indication of adjustment to the modern spirit. 
In the main, the institutions of this class have 
grown the most rapidly that have responded 
the most quickly and most loyally to the de- 
mand for religious liberty. 

2. Compulsory chapel is still common in these 
colleges and Universities. In many, church at- 
tendance is required on Sunday. But, while the 
old system remains, it is generally administered 
in a new spirit. The chapel exercise has been 
transformed in recent years. It has almost 
everywhere been given a modemness of tone, 
sometimes even a secular character, — a freshness 



122 RELIGIOUS FREED 031 IN 

and brightness making it more acceptable to 
young people. The custom of calling into ser- 
vice a number of speakers, representing differ- 
ent churches, has helped to broaden and vitalize 
this exercise that has so commonly been a dead 
and deadening formality. And experience 
shows that, where the broadest spirit has come 
into the administration of this side of college life, 
there the religious interest is keenest and most 
active among students. Those institutions that 
have moved farthest toward the voluntary sys- 
tem and those that have reached the greatest 
catholicity report the best religious conditions. 
This appeal to life proves that religion gains 
when bonds are broken and freedom is granted. 
3. Considerations of religious belief probably 
still have great weight in the selection of profes- 
sors for a large majority of these institutions. 
But even here progress has been made. It is 
now very seldom that a college president goes 
abroad over the land, as was done a few years 
ago, to find a Baptist chemist or a Trinitarian 
geologist ! Instructors are not at present, as 
formerly, kept in bonds to creed and catechism. 
Freedom of academic instruction has recently 



A3IERICAN EDUCATION 123 

made great gains in these schools. The govern- 
ing boards of many denominational colleges 
would not elect as president a man outside the 
fellowship with which the school is connected ,• 
and, other things being equal, they would, as a 
rule, favor for professional positions men and 
women of their own type of theology. But it 
is a fact that in the faculties of many of these 
colleges and Universities an increasing number 
of persons are found who hold different creeds j 
and it is becoming more and more rare for ec- 
clesiastics to enter the class-room of even de- 
nominational institutions with inquisitorial eye 
or with the ban of the church. 



NORMAL SCHOOLS AND AGRICULT- 
URAL COLLEGES 



NORMAL SCHOOLS AND AGRICULT- 
URAL COLLEGES 

We come now to the consideration of the re- 
ligious conditions of several groups of educa- 
tional institutions, quite different in aim and 
quality of work, but alike in this : they are all 
State institutions. They also differ widely in 
many ways from both denominational colleges 
on the one hand and from State Universities 
on the other hand. Let us first study the reli- 
gious situation as it is presented in our Normal 
Schools. 

There are over one hundred and fifty State 
and city Normal Schools in the United States 
with nearly 50,000 students. In over four-fifths 
of these attendance on chapel exercises every 
school day is compulsory. There are apparently 
no geographical differences in this particular. 
It is an interesting fact that, in most cases where 
State Universities have adopted the voluntary 
system or abandoned chapel services altogether, 

127 



128 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN 

the Normal Schools of the same States still main- 
tain the compulsory rule. 

There are obvious reasons for this difference, 
and prominent among them these : (1) The 
boards and faculties having charge of these 
schools are in general composed of a more con- 
servative class of persons than those who shape 
the policies of State Universities. They are per- 
sons in whom the old church spirit and ideal are 
still strong. (2) As the students are younger or 
less mature, there is a common feeling that they 
ought not to be left at such an age free from re- 
ligious culture and admonition. (3) Probably 
also because of the fact that the task of the teacher 
is still so intimately associated in the public 
mind with the interests of religion, it has been 
felt necessary to provide a religious atmosphere 
for the school that trains men and women for 
the high and holy duty of instructing children. 

Some of the reports from Normal Schools 
state that students are excused from chapel, 
if the request is made on the ground of conscien- 
tious scruples j and then it is added. Practically 
no such requests are made. Of course not. And 
the existence of such a rule does not guarantee 



AMERICAN EDUCATION 129 

theological neutrality. Something more than 
this must be done to secure perfect religious 
freedom. Even if attendance were quite dis- 
tasteful and considered positively unjust by 
many students, it is obvious that few would ask 
to be excused, as this would make them subject 
to comment. Few students care to put them- 
selves in such a position. 

In about one-fourth of the reports from Kormal 
Schools, it is stated that attendance at some 
church once a Sunday (twice in a few cases) is re- 
quired. At the Bridgewater State IN'ormal School 
(Massachusetts) the students (261) are required to 
attend some church of their own selection. This 
seems an unreasonable demand to make of stu- 
dents in a State school. In one case (in Georgia) 
a church roll is called on Monday 5 and the 
remark is added, ^^The students respect this 
record wholesomely " ! A preaching service on 
Sunday does not seem to be held in any of these 
Normal Schools. But Bible classes and prayer- 
meetings (attendance voluntary) are held in the 
buildings of many of these schools on Sunday. 
In almost all, the Young Men's Christian Associa- 
tions and similar organizations freely use the 



130 RELIGIOUS FREED 031 IN 

rooms of these institutions. Indeed, in the cata- 
logues of many Normal Schools the Y. M. 0. A. 
is given conspicuous attention, and its work is 
commended much as though an essential part of 
the school. 

There are about a score of State Normal 
Schools in which chapel attendance is voluntary, 
from 50 per cent, to 90 per cent, being given as 
the average proportion of students present. In 
half these cases, chapel is held only once in a 
week. The voluntary system has in most cases 
been recently substituted for the compulsory, 
and the results appear to be satisfactory. 

The situation at a few Normal Schools deserves 
special attention : The Chicago Normal School 
(500 students) has no chax^el exercise. The 
State Normal School at Oshkosh, Wis. (600 stu- 
dents) makes this report : '^ We have no chapel 
exercises proper ; but we take about twenty-five 
minutes each morning for ^opening exercises,' 
which consist of the singing of one or two hymns, 
the reading of some selection from a wide range of 
literature, but non-sectarian, and remarks upon 
some matter of current interest by the president 
or some member of the faculty. '^ Certainly, a 



AMERICAN EDUCATION 131 

commeDdable change from what in many cases 
has been a formal and perfunctory service that 
can only by courtesy be called religious. In this 
connection it is well to remember that the 
Supreme Court of Wisconsin in 1890 declared 
the reading of the Bible in the Public Schools of 
the State as a part of a religious exercise to be 
contrary to the provisions of the State constitu- 
tion, — a memorable and ej)Och-making decision. 

At the Normal School of Arizona, Tempe, 
even a simpler service is held, — songs, announce- 
ments, talks by members of the faculty, but no 
religious exercise. The report from the State 
Normal University, Normal, 111., states that, in 
addition to selections from the Bible, ' ^ we have 
had readings from Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, 
the Koran, Emerson, Bishoi^ Spalding, and 
others," — an unusual catholicity ! 

From these and similar facts it is easy to 
detect the operation in our Normal Schools of 
three tendencies that are apparently increasing 
in vigor : (1) In the last few years quite a num- 
ber of these schools have abandoned the old- 
fashioned compulsory chapel exercise. (2) In 
a larger number the voluntary system has taken 



132 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN 

the place of the compulsory. (3) Where com- 
pulsory chapel remains, the service has, as a 
rule, been largely improved, being freed from 
dogmatic features and given a more modern 
and social character. These changes indicate 
a commendable movement toward theological 
neutrality, although religious freedom can hardly 
be said to have been reached. Where the most 
progress in this direction has been made, relig- 
ious earnestness has not lessened, but increased. 

The religious situation in our Agricultural 
Colleges is similar to that in the Normal Schools, 
and probably for the same reasons in the main. 
In some of the States where instruction in agri- 
culture is a part of the educational system of the 
commonwealth, there is no separate school, but 
the work is a department in the State Univer- 
sity, as in Wisconsin ; and in these cases the 
regulations respecting chapel will be discussed 
in connection with the State Universities. 

Nearly all the Agricultural Colleges proper 
have chapel exercises of the usual character 
from Monday to Friday with compulsory at- 
tendance. No material changes in the manage- 



AMERICAN EDUCATION 133 

ment of these religious exercises have been made 
since these colleges were opened. Only in Mas- 
sachusetts, according to the reports made, is 
there a paid chaplain ; but the chaplain of this 
school, in addition to his religious duties, also 
acts as a professor and gives instruction in vari- 
ous secular branches during the week. 

In nearly all of these colleges, attendance on 
'^divine service ^^ is required on Sunday, either 
at the service held in the institution or at some 
local church, the preference of parents being 
honored in this respect. As a rule, the Young 
Men^s Christian Associations occupy rooms in 
the college buildings ; and they apparently have 
the hearty support of the faculty in general. 
In a few cases there are in addition Epworth 
Leagues and Societies of Christian Endeavor 
with equal privileges. 

The two notable exceptions to compulsory at- 
tendance at chapel are the Michigan State Agri- 
cultural College at Lansing and the Iowa State 
College of Agriculture at Ames. In these insti- 
tutions attendance is voluntary, in the former 
from 50 to 70 per cent, of the students being 
present, and in the latter from 15 to 40 per cent. 



134 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN 

being present. In both cases, however, there 
is preaching every Sunday morning in the col- 
lege with apparently compulsory attendance, — 
in the former by some minister from Lansing who 
is paid five dollars a Sunday for his services. 
As we reflect upon these facts the question arises 
whether the absence of changes in religious 
policy among these institutions is due to the 
conservative character of the agricultural class 
chiefly interested in them. 

There is another group of State institutions — 
Reform and Industrial Schools — that may well 
be briefly considered in this connection. Com- 
pulsory attendance on religious services is the 
general rule in these schools, as in all our penal 
and reformatory institutions. But there are 
marked differences in the frequency and charac- 
ter of such services. The report from the State 
Industrial School for Girls at Lancaster, Mass., 
contains a notable statement, showing an un- 
usual condition which is worthy special atten- 
tion : ^^The character of this school as a State 
institution is such that these topics [of religion] 
cannot be satisfactorily treated." 



AMERICAN EDUCATION 135 

But the schools of this class, with few excep- 
tions, have services on Sunday, with sermon or 
address at which attendance is required, the 
Minnesota State Eeformatory (for boys) at St. 
Cloud being the notable exception j and the 
system recently adopted there will be briefly 
described. In one case (State Industrial School, 
Kearney, Neb.), the report states that the stu- 
dents are required to attend the churches in 
the neighboring city on Sunday, — Protestants 
every week, and Catholics once a month. 

In addition, Sunday-school classes and prayer- 
meetings are held on Sunday in nearly all these 
schools, at which, however, as a rule, the attend- 
ance is voluntary. During the week in many 
institutions (probably over one-half) there are 
daily prayers or Bible-readings, usually in the 
different cottages. In some cases these are held 
both morning and evening, and attendance is in 
general compulsory. There are paid chaplains 
in about half of these schools. In some instances 
the ministers of local churches serve as chaplain 
in rotation. Eeligious organizations like the 
Y. M. C. A., Christian Endeavor, and Ep worth 
League, are infrequent. Gospel hymns are ap- 



136 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN 

parently more commonly used liere than in any 
other educational institutions. 

A few years ago a new system was adopted at 
the Minnesota State Eeformatory at St. Cloud, 
which has about 200 students. There are no 
chapel exercises on week-days, but inmates, on 
request, may receive religious instruction as 
desired from the ministers of the local churches 
in St. Cloud ; and for this purpose they are 
grouped into various classes. Attendance is 
voluntary, and the instruction is given without 
compensation. Two religious services are held 
in the institution on Sunday, at which attend- 
ance is voluntary : a Protestant service, at which 
about 70 per cent, of the Protestants are present ; 
and a Catholic service, at which about 50 per 
cent, of the Catholics are present. 

This system represents in many ways an ideal 
solution of a difficult problem. Two defects 
may, however, be found in it by critics : (1) 
the loss of comradeship and social culture that 
come from a daily meeting together ; and (2) 
the insistence that persons as young as these 
students should not be left to a voluntary system, 
for they are not capable of acting wisely for 
themselves in these matters. 



AMERICAN EDUCATION 137 

But, evidently, the originator of this plan has 
clear and decided convictions ; for he forcibly 
writes, The attendance on these Sunday services 
is ^^ absolutely voluntary, and it must and shall 
remain so." This is certainly a significant ex- 
periment, which will be watched by all with 
interest, and by many in the hope that it will 
show good results and that its general principle 
will be adopted widely in other schools. 

The situation in these and kindred institutions 
forces upon us the important question, How far 
is it right for the State to go in attempting to 
force religious instruction and religious services 
upon its delinquent children and criminal citi- 
zens ? Here is a serious problem which deserves 
more attention than it has so far received. 

In the technical schools, whether State insti- 
tutions or private foundations, there is, as a rule, 
no attempt at chapel exercise on week-days or 
religious service on Sunday. This is true of 
such schools as the Michigan College of Mines, 
the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the 
Case School of Applied Sciences, the Stevens In- 
stitute of Technology, and others. 



138 RELIGIOUS FREED 031 

Even at the Armour Institute of Technology, 
founded by a philanthropic churchman and pre- 
sided over by a clergyman, there are no at- 
tempts whatever to provide religious instruction 
by chapel on week-days or church on Sunday. 
It has no regulations whatever respecting relig- 
ious matters, wisely committing these important 
interests to home and church. 

And if it be said, in view of these and other 
similar facts, that something ought to be done 
along religious lines by all schools for children 
who come out of homes destitute of spiritual 
nurture, the adequate reply to this plea for re- 
ligious instruction in every school is the mere 
statement that this is work for the church rather 
than the school, and it is better for all interests 
to hold the church to its grave responsibility in 
this particular direction. If the home does fail 
at this point, it is the church, and not the school, 
that ought to supply what the family has neg- 
lected to give. 



THE STATE UNIVEKSITIES 



THE STATE UNIVERSITIES 

The influence of our State Universities in pro- 
moting religious freedom throughout the field 
of higher education in America has been, for the 
past fifty years, especially powerful. Probably 
it has been the most powerful influence, apart 
from the general spirit of the age, at work 
among us in this direction. Here the problem 
was stripped of all traditional associations and 
ecclesiastical embarrassments. These were new 
institutions, with no inherited bonds, created 
and maintained by the State for the people in 
general. Those who administered them were 
compelled to rise above sect and denomination, 
and work in an inclusive spirit. Here the 
^'American Idea" has found its clearest and 
strongest expression. 

In the early days of the oldest of these Univer- 
sities, clerical influences often played a conspic- 
uous part, and the religion problem frequently 
reached an acute stage of irritation. The steps 

141 



142 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN 

of progress were often slow, and sometimes quite 
uncertain ; but experience finally brought per- 
manent results in favor of approximate or abso- 
lute religious neutrality. The victory for relig- 
ious liberty has been substantially won, although 
in some cases there is a lingering survival of an- 
cient customs. The secular character of the 
American State finds complete expression in 
nearly all of our great State Universities, where 
education proceeds without clerical dictation or 
sectarian intent. 

The University of Michigan was the first of 
the State institutions to reach prominence. It 
was founded in 1837, its first class was graduated 
in 1845, and the number of students had reached 
500 by 1855. Its influence and example have 
been large and commanding, not only through- 
out the West, but also in all parts of our coun- 
try. It is therefore extremely interesting and 
instructive to trace its progress toward religious 
freedom. In its early years the few dominant 
denominations in the State of Michigan felt that 
they had a right to proportional representation 
in the faculty. Every one demanded ^ ^ a sphere 
of influence" ! These churches insisted that, 



AMERICAN EDUCATION 143 

when a professor was appointed, a certain man 
should be selected because he represented a par- 
ticular church. This policy, pernicious in itself 
and contrary to the spirit of American civiliza- 
tion, found many advocates among the promi- 
nent men of the State in the early days. If it 
had been established as a permanent policy at 
Ann Arbor, the University would have been 
crippled or destroyed, and the interests of edu- 
cation and religion in our whole nation would 
have been greatly injured. 

It was fortunate that the University had for its 
chancellor (as the president was then called) at 
that critical time a man of broad spirit and 
clear vision, deeply imbued with true American- 
ism, who, while a loyal churchman with deep 
religious convictions, saw what was the path of 
wisdom for State, church, and school. Henry P. 
Tappan was an educator with the prescient mind 
of a statesman. His words reveal a perfect mas- 
tery of the great problem, and they are weU 
worthy our careful consideration. 

In a notable address on '^The University : Its 
Constitution and its Eelations, Political and Ee- 
ligious," delivered at Ann Arbor in 1858, Dr. 



144 RELIGIOUS FREED 031 IN 

Tappan referred to the tlien popular demand 
that religious considerations be taken into ac- 
count in the selection of members of the faculty j 
and he clearly stated his general position in these 
words : ' ^ In the aj)pointment of professors, ref- 
erence should be had only to scientific and liter- 
ary qualifications, and aptitude to teach. It is 
indispensable to a teacher in any branch of sci- 
ence or literature that he should be master of the 
branch which he professes to teach. However 
amiable his character, however pure his relig- 
ious or political creed according to the judgment 
of any sect or party, if he has not the requisite 
literary or scientific qualifications, he is of no 
account. It is on this common-sense principle 
that we select a physician, a lawyer, a mechanic, 
a laborer of any description ; and it would be 
the height of infatuation to reject it in the ap- 
pointment of professors. l!^or would the institu- 
tion in question avoid the error by adopting the 
principle of selecting the best man of one's own 
sect or party j for it might often happen that 
the best man of the sect or party would not be 
the best man for the vacant chair, and some 
man of extraordinary ability, and whose acces- 



AMERICAN- ED UCA TION 145 

sion would bring incalculable strength and repu- 
tation to the institution, would be set aside. 
There is no safe principle but that of looking 
directly at the qualifications of the individual, 
relatively to the chair to be filled." 

Here we have the fundamental principle of 
Civil Service Eeform applied to the appoint- 
ment of University professors : a person shall be 
appointed to a position solely on account of his 
ability to fill it efficiently, — considerations of 
sect or party shall have no weight whatever. 
"We have in recent years become familiar with 
this doctrine, but it was not so well known or 
generally respected in our country a half- century 
ago ; and its advocacy and application as a Uni- 
versity policy by Dr. Tappan needs to be re- 
membered with gratitude as a memorable inci- 
dent in the history of American education. 

The following paragraph is also intensely 
interesting : — 

^^ Every sect has the right of establishing its 
own institutions j but no such institution can 
arise to eminence, or gain large success, by mak- 
ing the promotion of sectarian interest its great 
aim. Let any one carefully examine the institu- 



146 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN 

tions of our country, and he will find the above 
assertion fully sustained. Hence we find the 
sectarian institutions, so called, tending more 
and more to a liberal policy. The genius of our 
country demands that, if sectarian in name, they 
should not be so in their educational organi- 
zation and procedures." Significant and pro- 
phetic words ! 

Chancellor Tappan then proceeds to apply 
this principle to the case in hand, — the Univer- 
sity of Michigan: ^^If the principle we have 
above laid down, that the appointment of pro- 
fessors to chairs of literature and science, to all 
chairs, at least, outside the theological, is to be 
independent alike of political and religious 
tests, and solely in reference to literary and 
scientific qualifications, and aptitude to teach, 
and that, too, in institutions professedly at- 
tached to particular religious denominations, . . . 
then I say, when we come to this institution, the 
principle of regulating appointments by qualifi- 
cations alone, cannot fail us. Here, if anywhere, 
political and religious tests must be utterly abol- 
ished, nor even a shadow of them appear." 

But it is evident that men with other ideals 



AMERICAN ED UCA TION 147 

existed at that time in the State of Michigan, 
For Dr. Tappan goes on to state : ^ ' A plan has 
somehow sprung up, and in one or two instances 
been acted upon, which, on the one hand, by 
proclaiming the equal rights of all religious de- 
nominations in University appointments, seems 
to avoid exclusiveness j while, on the other hand, 
in the very attempt to adjust these rights, it 
involves us in all the evils of denominational 
tests. For on this plan, whenever a chair is to 
be filled, instead of confining ourselves to the 
consideration of the literary and scientific quali- 
fications of the candidates, and their aptitude to 
teach, we must raise two additional inquiries : 
First, to which of the denominations does the 
appointment about to be made, of right, be- 
long 1 And, secondly, which of the candidates 
possesses the requisite denominational qualifica- 
tions r^ 

These words describe what was the storm cen- 
tre of angry debate in the young commonwealth 
of Michigan. The policy having been de- 
scribed, its pernicious character is then set forth : 
^^Now it is plain that in both these questions 
we depart from the true principle before vindi- 



148 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN 

cated^ and that, this plan once adopted, every 
appointment afterwards made to the University 
would be governed by some denominational test. 
But this would not be the only evil we should 
have to encounter. There would be the evil of 
denominational jealousy and competition. How 
would it be possible to adjust these denomina- 
tional rights? Which denomination shall have 
the largest number of professors % Shall it be de- 
termined by the numbers, the wealth, the politi- 
cal influence, or the educated intelligence of the 
sect ? Or shall the same number be distributed 
alike to all the sects ? But some professorships 
may be regarded as more influential than 
others j and the full professorship would gener- 
ally be regarded as taking precedence of the as- 
sistant. Then how many assistant professorships 
shall be considered equivalent to one full profes- 
sorship? Shall it be two or one and a half? 
How shall we determine the relative importance 
of the full professorships? Which sect shall 
have the right to nominate the president ?'' 
Here the absurdity of the policy urged by secta- 
rian zealots is laid bare, not only by forcible ar- 
gument, but by keen ridicule. 



AMERICAN EDUCATION 149 

In the same noble and convincing strain, Dr. 
Tappan proceeds : ^* Wlien these representatives 
of the different sects are introduced into the 
University, acknowledged and known in this 
capacity, then the question arises: How are they 
to act out their representative capacity, and to 
maintain the interests of the bodies which they 
represent ? Shall they all remit the peculiarities 
of their respective sects, and endeavor to stand 
upon certain principles in which they all agree ? 
Then there will, in reality, be no representation 
of sects ; and the ends of the whole arrangement 
become null and void. Shall each one assert his 
sectarian peculiarities % Then will the Univer- 
sity be split into conflicting parties, and the 
professors be found heading their respective 
clans, and, instead of an institution providing the 
inhabitants of the State with the means of acquir- 
ing a thorough knowledge of the various branches 
of literature, science, and the arts, we shall have a 
grand gymnasium where Catholic and Protestant, 
the orthodox and the heterodox, engaged in end- 
less logomachies, shall renew Milton's chaos: 

' A universal hubbub wild 
Of stunning sounds and voices all confused ' I 



150 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN 

Better, far better than to run the hazard of 
such confusion and ruin, would it be to consign 
the University to any one denomination, Catho- 
lic or Protestant, animated by the noble spirit 
of Padua, Pisa, or Leiden. One alone possess- 
ing it might be generous and enlightened : a 
number attempting to share its functions and 
divide its spoils would only rend it in pieces." 

Then follows a paragraph which deserves a 
very high place in the history of American edu- 
cation : ^ '• But egregiously do those mistake the 
character and ends of this institution who imag- 
ine that, because it belongs to no sect or party 
in particular, it therefore belongs to all sects and 
parties conjointly, and of equal right. It not 
only does not belong to any sect or party in par- 
ticular : it belongs to no sect or party at all. It 
belongs to the people of this State simply as the 
people of the State. The deed of trust by which 
it was founded, the ordinance by which its objects 
are defined, makes no allusion to Catholic or Prot- 
estant, to Presbyterian, Methodist, Episcopalian, 
Baptist, Congregationalist, Unitarian, Univer- 
salist, or any other religious denomination. It 
speaks not of political parties ; it refers to no par- 



AMERICAN EDUCATION 151 

ticular localities. It speaks only of the State of 
Michigan, or of the people of the State. It is a 
purely literary and scientific institution : it is in 
no sense ecclesiastical. It is designed for a simple 
purpose, — advancing knowledge and promoting 
education. Occupying a higher grade, it is as 
purely a poi)ular and educational institution as 
the common school itself. It is as absurd to 
speak of the University as belonging to religious 
sects conjointly as it would be to speak of the 
asylum, the State prison, the legislature, or any 
other public body, institution, or works, as thus 
belonging. The State is not composed of sects, 
but of the people. And the institutions of the 
State do not belong to the sects into which the 
people may chance to be divided by their relig- 
ious opinions and x>ractices, but to the people 
considered as the body politic, irrespective of all 
such divisions." 

This discussion has been quoted at length 
because of its intrinsic worth and its relative 
importance. Chancellor Tappan fully appreci- 
ated the secular character of our American 
Nation. He saw with perfect clearness that a 
State school must follow the character of the 



152 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN 

State which creates and maintains it. As, there- 
fore, the State in its purely civic functions stands 
wholly apart from religious beliefs and rites, 
so also must its schools be neutral toward all 
churches. Having no religion of its own as a 
State (though its people may have a hundred 
different forms of religion), it cannot put any 
religion, however simple, meagre, or universal, 
into its schools, whether common school or col- 
lege. The State University must not attempt to 
teach any theological dogmas or favor any par- 
ticular denomination. 

It was equally clear to Dr. Tappan that the 
churches as such must have no voice whatever 
in the management of its affairs or the selection 
of its faculty. And he insisted upon these 
principles, not only as a citizen loyal to the 
American theory of government, but also as an 
enlightened friend of all the churches and of 
religion in general. Coming as they did, in the 
formative period of our ^yestern civilization, 
just as State Universities began to be organized, 
coming also from a distinguished educator, who 
was then occupying a post of great distinction as 
head of the largest State University in the land, 



AMERICAN EDUCATION 153 

these words carried great weight and exerted a 
wide and decisive influence. These principles, 
set forth with so much power by Dr. Tappan, 
have been incorporated into the life and organi- 
zation of all the State Universities that have 
been established in the last fifty years. 

It remains to trace the changes made in chapel 
exercises in these institutions and to describe the 
conditions in this respect which exist at present. 
There are about forty State (and Territorial) 
Universities in our Nation. A few of these, like 
that of Maine, are really no more than agri- 
cultural colleges ; and in these a daily chapel is 
held at which atttendance is expected. In a 
few cases, like the University of Vermont, the 
agricultural college of the State was grafted 
upon a previously existing denominational insti- 
tution ; and, quite naturally, the regulation re- 
specting chapel which existed in the older 
college remains, and the compulsory policy is 
still in force. A half dozen State Universities in 
the South, like those in North Carolina and 
South Carolina, in Georgia, and in Alabama, 
were established near the beginning of the nine- 
teenth century, at a time when all such institu- 



154 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN 

tions were under strict religious influences ; and 
in these the compulsory chapel is still main- 
tained. 

The chapel services in all these institutions 
are at present very much the same in character 
as in former years, though some changes have 
been made. More music has recently been 
added : none whatever is allowed in the State 
college of Kentucky ! Some little effort has 
been put forth to make these exercises less theo- 
logical and more practical than they formerly 
were. In the University of South Carolina 
and in the University of Alabama, students are 
required to attend church once a Sunday ! 
These facts remind us that there are still a few 
sections of our land where the secular character 
of our government is not fully understood ; and, 
unfortunately, the principle of religious neutral- 
ity in education has not everywhere been ac- 
cepted. But these few and scattered survivals 
of ancient customs only emphasize the progress 
which the rest of the country has happily 
made. 

In one-half of our State Universities where a 
chapel service is held, the attendance is volun- 



AMERICAN EDUCATION 155 

tary. In some cases the service departs very 
far from the conventional form, being more a 
secular assembly of students and faculty than a 
religious exercise. Chapel is held every school 
day, with voluntary attendance, in about a 
dozen of these institutions, usually conducted by 
members of the faculty, in a few instances by 
pastors of local churches, and in one case by the 
secretary of the Y. M. 0. A., — the University 
of Virginia ! In five — the Universities of Ore- 
gon, Ohio State, Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming 
— there is a weekly gathering of all members of 
the institution. This meeting as a rule is more 
a social and educational convocation than a de- 
votional service, though prayer and Scripture 
reading are common features. 

In the University of Colorado, chapel is held 
Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. In the 
University of Indiana one hour is set apart — 10 
A.M. to 11 A.M. — on Tuesday and Thursday each 
week for a religious service, with an address by 
one of the local ministers or some clergyman 
from a distance. The University of Michigan 
holds a vesper service at four o' clock on Tues- 
day and Thursday — during a part of the year. 



156 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN 

This service is chiefly musical, with short prayer 
and Scripture reading, usually by the president. 
This is in no sense a chapel service after the old 
type. In these institutions the attendance of 
students varies from 20 per cent, to 90 per cent. 
In all but those recently organized, the compul- 
sory chapel formerly existed. 

There are six State Universities — Nevada, 
California, Wisconsin, Illinois, Iowa (voluntary 
chapel may later be resumed, when suitable room 
is provided), Arizona (still a Territory) — where 
no chapel exercise is held. In some of these, 
notably in Arizona and Wisconsin, there is a 
general meeting of students. In Arizona an as- 
sembly is held Friday morning, but without de- 
votional exercises, — ^^ prohibited by organic act 
from introducing any exercises of a religious 
nature." Wisconsin now has a weekly assem- 
bly, or convocation, at which members of the 
Freshman and Sophomore Classes are required 
to attend, and which is open to the members of 
the other classes. At these meetings the presi- 
dent addresses the students on some matter of 
interest, or distinguished men from outside the 
institution speak to the students upon various 



AMERICAN EDUCATION 157 

topics, often questions of contemporary history 
or politics. Members of the faculty, other than 
the president, frequently speak on these occa- 
sions. Music is made a prominent feature. 

It is interesting to note the comparisons in 
size and rate of growth between the institutions 
which have kept closest to the traditional policy 
and those that have practically reached religious 
neutrality. In the ten State institutions where 
the compulsory policy is still maintained, there 
are at present less than 4,000 students, — only 
about as many as in some one of the great 
Universities that have come completely into 
harmony with the modern spirit. The rate of 
growth in the last ten years has been much more 
rapid in the State institutions with freer and 
more modern spirit. 

The following is also an impressive statement : 
One-half of the college students of our country 
are in the twenty-five institutions that have vol- 
untary chapel or no similar exercise, — fifteen 
State Universities and the ten institutions like 
Washington, Ck)rnell, Stanford, Harvard, Co- 
lumbia, Boston, Smith, Bryn Mawr, Syracuse, 
and Johns Hopkins. The other half are scat- 



158 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN 

tered in some 400 institutions ! The number of 
students in these twenty-five Universities has in- 
creased during the past ten years 125 per cent. 
The following ten denominational institutions of 
the best type — Eochester, \Yake Forest, Cornell 
College, Colby, Hamilton, Lawrence, Princeton, 
Drake, Wittenberg, De Pauw — have increased 
in number of students in the same period only 
about 40 per cent., — a growth only about one- 
third as fast as in the former class ! It would 
be exceedingly absurd to contend that the pol- 
icy of voluntary chai)el has been a prominent, 
or even a considerable, factor in this more rapid 
growth. But this comparison does show very 
plainly what type of institution appeals most 
powerfully at present to the American people. 

In these State institutions that have existed 
for twenty years or more, several tendencies are 
to be noticed. (1) Daily chapel exercises with 
compulsory attendance were formerly general, if 
not almost universal. The voluntary system has 
rapidly gained ground in recent years. Of the 
35,000 students in all these State Universities, 
less than 4,000, as has been stated, are now under 
compulsory chapel rules ; over 20,000 are in in- 



AMERICAN EDUCATION 159 

stitutions with the voluntary system ; and over 
9, 000 in those with no chapel service. 

(2) In many cases the transitions have been 
similar to those in Wisconsin and Michigan. 
Many years ago in both there was compulsory 
chapel ; then chapel was made voluntary with 
expectation of attendance 5 and, finally purely 
voluntary and occasional, as in Michigan, or 
wholly abolished, as in Wisconsin. 

(3) Where attendance on chapel is now re- 
quired, the services have been made more 
practical, more varied, and more educational ; 
less dogmatic and less perfunctory. 

(4) The testimonies of competent observers 
indicate that these changes, instead of injuring 
religion and lowering the moral tone of the 
students, have been coincident with a deepening 
of the religious life of the student body. One 
University president, located in the South, 
writes significantly, ^'Compulsory chapel at- 
tendance was here productive of much sin^' ! 
Probably many others could give decisive evi- 
dence in the same line. 



SOME INTERESTING EXPERIMENTS 



SOME INTERESTING EXPERIMENTS 

In a great majority of our American institutions 
of higher education the religious problem is be- 
ing treated with greater wisdom and more cath- 
olicity than ever before. Almost everywhere 
the atmosphere has become less dogmatic and 
more tolerant. The policy of compulsion is 
giving way to the voluntary method. Chapel 
exercises are becoming less formal and more 
spiritual; less theological and more ethical. 
The great institutions are calling to their aid 
the eminent men of nearly all denominations. 

Extreme positions on both sides are being 
abandoned : the conservatives have a keener 
appreciation of the necessity of theological neu- 
trality in State schools, and the radicals see more 
clearly than ever before the importance of relig- 
ion and admit that the opportunity for relig- 
ious culture, of broad and inclusive type, ought 
to be provided in college and University. The 
conviction deepens that compulsion is not wise. 

163 



164 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN 

On the other hand, many feel that it is not best 
to abandon the field completely. Public opin- 
ion centres more and more on methods that in- 
sure theological freedom, but provide religious 
opportunity. 

Cornell University has been a pioneer in this 
realm. By the terms of the charter of the Uni- 
versity, persons of any religious denomination or 
of no religious denomination are equally eligible 
to all offices and appointments j but it is expressly 
ordered that '' at no time shall a majority of the 
Board of Trustees be of any one religious sect or 
of no religious secf 

From 1868 to 1871 daily chapel exercises were 
held, but very broad in spirit ; and all students 
were expected to attend. In 1873, Sage Chapel 
(recently enlarged and beautified) was given to 
the University, and the Sage Preachership En- 
dowment was established. For thirty years re- 
ligious services have been held in the Chapel on 
Sunday, conducted by eminent clergymen, se- 
lected, in the spirit of the charter, from the 
various religious denominations. These minis- 
ters serve but one Sunday in the year, and they 
have no pastoral or other relations with the stu- 



AMERICAN EDUCATION 165 

dents : their duty is limited to the pulpit work 
of this particular Sunday. Of course, some of 
these clergymen return to give sermons for a 
number of years in succession. 

The Sage Chapel preaching service on Sunday 
is very popular, and it is generally attended by 
a large number of professors and students. The 
Chapel is also open every week-day from 5 p.m. 
to 5.45 P.M., when religious music is rendered, 
with special programmes on Thursdays. At- 
tendance on all these services is absolutely vol- 
untary. All observers testify that the moral 
and religious tone of the student body is high, 
and there has been progress rather than de- 
cline under this system for the period of thirty 
years during which it has existed. 

The University of North Carolina has a system 
of University preachers somewhat similar to 
that at Cornell. It was developed from a very 
old custom of having ministers invited by the 
Y. M. C. A. once a month to deliver sermons 
to the students. Gradually, the choice of these 
preachers and the payment of their expenses 
fell into the hands of the University proper, 
making them officers of the institution during 



166 RELIGIOUS FREED 031 IN 

their term of service. This custom is now more 
than twenty years old. These clergymen are 
selected from a few denominations, and they 
have no pastoral relations with the students. 

The University of Virginia has a system with 
some unique features. The daily voluntary 
chapel is held at 6.15 p.m. It is conducted by 
the Secretary of the Y. M. C. A. The attend- 
ance is small, but those present are very ear- 
nest. There are on Sunday two preaching ser- 
vices, the character and support of which are 
thus described by a member of the faculty : 
'^We have no religion here, as an institution; 
but the vast majority of our faculty and the 
greater proportion of our students are Christian 
men. Each member of the faculty subscribes 
every year one per cent, of his salary volunta- 
rily to religious services, and the students give 
what they will when the paper is carried around 
to them by the secretary of the Y. M. C. A. 
We have invited preachers every Sunday, in- 
cluding such men as Lyman Abbott, Dr. Faunce 
of Brown University, Dr. Strong of New York, 
and others of prominence from the North, and 
many leading divines from the South and West. 



AiMERICAN EDUCATION 167 

Here we stop after asking the ministers of the 
city to look after the members of their respec- 
tive denominations among our students. When 
the students apply for matriculation^ they put 
down their religious affiliation on the blank 
forms which they fill out at that time j and from 
these a full list is made out and sent to the local 
pastors, including Jews and Eoman Catholics. 
These latter we do not have in our chapel, as 
the standard Protestant organizations only are 
invited to officiate." 

Attendance on the Sunday preaching service 
at the University of Virginia is entirely volun- 
tary. It is interesting to note that the first 
college Y. M. C. A. was organized in this insti- 
tution founded by Thomas Jefferson ! It is con- 
fidently reported that for many years there has 
been a steady progress toward a deeper religious 
life. But the University has no regulations re- 
specting religious matters, except that golf can- 
not be played on the grounds of the institution 
during the Sabbath ! A century of experience 
proves that the utmost religious liberty de- 
manded by the founder, Thomas Jefferson, has 
after all been helpful to the interests of piety ! 



168 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN 

The Leland Stanford Junior University is 
neither a State nor a denominational institution. 
It does not accept even the term ^^non-secta- 
rian." It was founded in the broadest spirit, and 
yet a religious impulse finds expression in its or- 
ganic law. The charter of the University pro- 
hibits sectarian instruction, but provides that 
there shall be taught in the University ^^the 
immortality of the soul, the existence of an all- 
wise and benevolent Creator, and that obedience 
to his laws is the highest duty of man." 

Two kinds of voluntary religious services are 
maintained by the University, — two church 
services on Sunday and a Thursday afternoon 
vesper service. During the first four years after 
the University was opened there was a daily 
voluntary chapel at 8.15 a.m. The University 
Chapel Union, organized by the University com- 
munity in 1896, co-operates with the Faculty 
Committee on Chapel Services in the endeavor to 
make the religious services of the University an 
expression of the life of the community, and 
invested, as far as possible, with the atmosphere 
of a church home. 

The preachers to the University for the past 



AMERICAN EDUCATION 169 

few years represent the most inclusive list to be 
found anywhere among our American Universi- 
ties, not only Christians, but Jews j not only 
Protestants, but Catholics ; not only clergymen, 
but also distinguished laymen. 

The Memorial Church, with a total seating 
capacity of 1, 700, has recently been dedicated ; 
and Eev. Dr. E. Heber ^N^ewton has just entered 
upon his duties as preacher to the University, 
and the progress of his work will be watched 
with great interest in the generous hope that his 
ministrations will be spiritually helpful, and 
also that they will suggest better methods of 
religious culture for our great educational insti- 
tutions. A paid chaplain has also recently been 
installed, who is practically a college pastor. 
This arrangement brings two clergymen into 
close association with the students of the Uni- 
versity, but the voluntary principle is main- 
tained. Both these men have been members of 
the Protestant Episcopal priesthood, but they 
are at present released from ecclesiastical super- 
vision. 

What may well be called the '^Harvard 
Plan ' ' seems to many the most successful method 



170 RELIGIOUS FREED 031 IN 

yet devised to afford religious opportunity, and 
at the same time to maintain theological neu- 
trality. The originator of this plan, Professor 
Francis G. Peabody, very justly describes in 
these words the philosophy which underlies the 
methods which have produced such good results 
at our oldest University. He writes : — 

' ^ Two methods have hitherto presented them- 
selves as open to the Universities in dealing with 
religion. The one is the method of compulsion ; 
the other is the method of abolition. Compul- 
sion toward religion in the life of youth has bred 
repulsion from religion in the life of many a 
man. He has come to regard religion as an 
obligation rather than an opportunity ; as a 
system of police, which he may try to evade, 
rather than a spirit of life which he should be 
encouraged to seek. 

^^Eeligion is not a thing which can be barred 
out of the world of study. . . . There is hardly a 
single department of study to which one can 
make the least concession without being brought 
into immediate relation with the interest of the 
spiritual life, and out of which does not neces- 
sarily come either confirmation of conviction or 



AMERICAN EDUCATION 171 

increase of uncertainty. It is in vain that a 
University or an individual attempts to be 
neutral in such a matter. Eeligion is too large 
and too penetrating a thing to be shut out. 
Agnosticism toward it is not a neutral position 
either in a University or in an individual. It is 
a position of positive and direct influence. ^ He 
that is not with me is against me, and he that 
scattereth not with me scattereth abroad.' '' 

Dr. Peabody pleads with illuminating wisdom 
for both liberty and opportunity in religion, as 
it stands related to University administration : 
^ ^ Thus the voluntary system in religion is a two- 
fold act of faith : it is a faith in the power of 
religion, and it is a faith in the impulses of 
young men. The other system of religion in the 
colleges seems to proceed not from faith, but from 
doubt. The system of abolition doubts the 
power of religion, and assumes that a University 
can get on without it. The system of compul- 
sion doubts the impulses of young men, and as- 
sumes that they cannot be trusted in their deeper 
leadings. The system of privilege assumes two 
things : that religion rationally presented can 
hold its place among the competing interests of 



172 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN 

the time, and that the hearts of young men 
are naturally receptive and responsive to its 
call." 

It was in 1886 that Dr. Peabody, then Plum- 
mer Professor of Christian Ethics in Harvard, 
put these general ideas into practice in a system 
which has four parts (1) A daily chapel, a 
brief but impressive service, held at 8.45 A.M., at 
which attendance is absolutely voluntary. This 
service is led by one of the five college preachers. 
Twenty minutes before nine the old college 
bell-ringer sends out a warning chime, and then 
keeps up a gentle tolling of the bell, while the 
students gather in Appleton Chapel for morning 
prayers. As the first dozen enter the chapel 
and select seats, the organist begins a voluntary. 
By two and threes, others enter, to meditate in 
the almost empty church, where the morning 
light shines dimly in through tinted panes, as 
though striving to cheer the sombre walls. Dur- 
ing the last minute the students throng into the 
Chapel, until there is a congregation of several 
hundreds. At fifteen minutes of nine the organ 
is stilled, and the preacher enters the pulpit. As 
he rises before the congregation, they also rise 



AMERICAN EDUCATION 173 

and preacher and students read a Psalm together. 
Hardly are all seated again, when the opening 
chords of the anthem peal forth from the organ, 
and the choir sings. 

After this song service comes the reading of 
the Bible, with comments by the preacher, and a 
prayer. It is the preacher's share in the exercises 
that is most unique and most attractive. Each of 
the college preachers leads the chapel services for 
about six weeks during the college year, usually 
making three visits to Cambridge of a fortnight 
each. These clergymen belong to different de- 
nominations, and they are selected on account 
of their catholicity of spirit and eminence as 
preachers. It is well to dwell on the great op- 
portunity for religious instruction which the 
presence of these men affords. No system of 
family worship can begin to be so attractive as 
this simple yet splendid service. IN'o one man's 
teaching can be compared to the rich variety of 
religious thinking which is offered by these 
great church leaders. 

When the prayer is ended, — sometimes in 
the full sentences of the Prayer-book, sometimes 
the utterances of a '^ heart's sincere desire," 



174 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN 

often only the familiar Lord's Prayer, — the 
students rise and sing a hymn in closing. With 
a short benediction and a responsive amen from 
the choir, the service is ended. No notices of 
any kind, or announcements, are ever given at 
any service in the chapel. 

(2) A preaching service is held on Sunday 
evening in the college Chapel. Here one of 
the college preachers officiates. Each college 
preacher is expected to supply the pulpit four 
times a year. The Board of Preachers for the 
year also select a number of clergymen from 
other churches, who give about one-third of the 
sermons during the year. All these sermons are 
expected to deal with religion in its essential 
elements and universal aspects — practical ser- 
mons on the religious life. 

(3) The influence of the preacher upon the 
University does not stop every day at nine 
o'clock in the morning, nor is it limited to the 
Chapel pulpit. The University Calendar in- 
variably contains the following notice : — 

^'The preacher conducting morning prayers 
may be found at Wadsworth House I. every day 
during his term of service." 



AMERICAN EDUCATION I75 

Wadsworth House is the residence of the col- 
lege iDreachers while in Cambridge. It stands in 
the ^^ Quadrangle," in the heart of college life, 
where it has stood since 1726, when it was built 
for the president's home. Here the young men 
can meet the preachers personally, and converse 
with them confidentially on all perplexing ques- 
tions that University life raises in regard to 
religion, morality, and charity. This consult- 
ing-room is seldom crowded, but never neg- 
lected. 

(4) A popular service has been introduced 
during the winter term, for several years, as a 
vesper service on Thursday afternoons. The 
Chapel is thrown open to the public, and the 
students take this opportunity to invite their 
friends to the college. The ladies seem espe- 
cially pleased with the exercises, and Thursday 
afternoons assume the aspect of half-holidays. 
Vespers begins at five, and last some forty 
minutes : they are largely a service of song, 
but always have a short sermon. The music is 
furnished by the college choir, aided usually by 
some soloist from the neighboring cities. 

As the reader will have noticed, the following 



176 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN 

principles are involved in the ^ ^ Harvard Plan ' ' : 
{a) absolute religious freedom by leaving attend- 
ance upon all these services perfectly voluntary ; 
(p) rotation in service of distinguished preachers, 
who are officers of the University, usually serv- 
ing for several years in succession, and who bring 
their wisest and broadest word on religion and 
life to these students ; (c) what Professor Peabody 
calls ''the heart of the movement," the residence 
of these preachers at the University during their 
terms of service, to maintain pastoral relations 
with the students, conferring with them respect- 
ing their religious problems. 

President Charles W. Eliot gives this emphatic 
testimony in favor of the good results that have 
followed the adoption of these methods : — 

''Both these branches of the ministers' work 
[preaching and pastoral] have succeeded in a 
high degree. The services on Sunday evenings 
and Thursday afternoons are largely attended ; 
and morning prayers at a quarter before nine 
are attended in a satisfactory way, although by 
varying numbers and never by a large propor- 
tion of the total body of students in Cambridge. 
An attendance of two hundred at morning 



AMERICAN EDUCATION 177 

prayers is considered good ; and in very bad 
weather, especially on Monday morning, the at- 
tendance occasionally descends to sixty or sev- 
enty persons. All the services now held in Ap- 
pleton Chapel are strictly devotional in method 
and in spirit. No one attends any of them ex- 
cept from the conviction that it is good for him 
to be there. It is perfectly understood among 
both faculty and students that no record is kept 
of attendance at the chapel, and that no gain of 
any sort can result from attendance except the 
satisfaction of a religious need. The congrega- 
tion is a shifting one . from morning to morning 
and from week to week, although, of course, 
some students and some officers go to chapel 
habitually. In ten years there ha^ been no sign 
of diminishing interest in the chapel exercises ; 
but, on the contrary, there has been manifested 
a growing interest. 

^ ^ In seeking the reasons for the success of this 
purely optional method in a community of young 
men at a time of life which, on the whole, is not, 
in common estimation, religiously inclined, the 
first cause which comes to mind is the quality of 
the preachers themselves who in successive years 



178 RELIGIOUS FREED 031 IN 

have had charge of the work. These ministers 
have been, and need to be, more than usually 
capable as preachers. They need to be simple, 
direct, and manly, but also full of religious 
enthusiasm and of intellectual resource. The 
variety of preachers is one of the advantages of 
the method. The preachers have come from 
various denominations and localities, and they 
have been men of varied professional training 
and experience." 

Henry Drummond, certainly a fair and com- 
petent witness, declared that the services in 
Appleton Chapel were the most religious, public 
or private, that he had ever seen. The influence 
of this ^^ Harvard Plan" has been wide and 
salutary. It may be traced in what has been 
done to modify and enrich the methods at Yale, 
Amherst, Dartmouth, Yassar, and other institu- 
tions, where distinguished ministers from a dis- 
tance, representing various denominations, are 
called into service. A few of the State Universi- 
ties, like the University of Indiana, have copied 
some of these methods. The University of Chi- 
cago has recently adopted a system that resembles 
in some particulars the methods in operation at 



AMERICAN EDUCATION 179 

Harvard. It has a board of preachers, who, in 
turn, reside at the institution for a term of 
weeks, conducting chapel exercises and preach- 
ing on Sunday. But, unfortunately, attendance 
at chapel is compulsory for different departments 
on different days, the service is marred by the 
presence of some things not conducive to the 
religious spirit, and the pastoral relation is not 
made prominent. 



CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDA- 
TIONS 



CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDA- 
TIONS 

I. Eespecting the Public Schools. 

There is a feeling abroad in the land that we 
do not have moral power sufficient for the great 
task of civilization which we face. Those clear- 
eyed observers among us who are not iDCSsimists 
realize the ethical insufficiency of our people. 
When we make up the balance-sheet of the past 
hundred years or take stock for the business of 
the coming century, it is necessary that we look 
carefully to our gains and losses in righteousness. 
And, optimists as we ought to be, there are some 
pretty black facts that stare us in the face. The 
horrible brutality of our frequent lynchings and 
burnings at the stake, which constantly increase 
all over our land ; the alarming number of mur- 
ders, — one annually to every thousand families 
in many States ; the almost incredible growth of 
divorces, — these facts make an awful record. 
Who can describe the evils of the saloon ? Not 

183 



184 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN 

less alarming is the spread of bribery in the 
realm of politics. The bribe-giver and the 
bribe-taker stand at many a ballot box, and 
they stand there with no shame and little cen- 
sure. They stalk brazenly through public as- 
semblies from village council chamber to legisla- 
tive hall. The marks of their infamy brand 
many a brow from alderman to high govern- 
mental official. 

An engineer recently remarked: ^^We shall 
have to rebuild all the bridges on our line of 
railroad the coming summer. The old ones 
would collapse under the weight of the new cars 
that are to be double the size of those which 
were formerly run on our line. ' ' Apt illustration 
of what has already happened to a marked de- 
gree in the social and political world. The vil- 
lage conscience has often gone to pieces under 
the metropolitan stress and strain ! A moral 
sense that was adequate for simpler conditions 
has collapsed under the heavier burdens of 
modern life. The complexity of our problem 
has outgrown the ethical evolution. Our fort- 
unes have increased faster than our moral re- 
sources. Temptations have outrun the growth 



AMERICAN EDUCATION 185 

of moral sentiment. The life-traffic is too heavy 
for the life-bridges. To be as good an alderman 
as his predecessor a generation ago, my neighbor 
must have vastly more moral capital. He must 
be able to resist the bribes of contractors and 
promoters in quest for franchise, who were then 
almost unknown. 

But worse than this : Not only have burdens 
and temptations increased with very much 
greater rapidity than the growth of moral power, 
our spiritual resources have actually diminished. 
Not only are the new cars heavier, the bridges 
are weaker from the decay of prop and brace. 
Eeligious conviction has lost much of its author- 
ity and power to guide human life. The church 
no longer commands : it entertains and pleads. 
The home does not give that vigorous moral 
training which it once provided and ought still 
to provide. The press amuses and instructs, 
but it seldom arouses and leads. Literature too 
often takes us into the sewer rather than to the 
heights. The precious institution of Sunday no 
longer safeguards the common sanctities as for- 
merly. Let us not exaggerate. We must not 
for a moment think that all, or even a majority. 



186 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN 

of the people are bad. In some directions there 
have been decided gains for morality. In many- 
lines of business, honor and honesty were prob- 
ably never before so high. But outside some de- 
partmentS; like the post-of&ce, there has been a 
plunge downward in the ideals and methods of 
the men in public life in America. 

Now, when people begin to realize these condi- 
tions, — and many have already become alarmed 
by these dangers that threaten us, — they look for 
the cause of these evils, in order that some rem- 
edy may be found and applied. They anxiously 
ask : What institution is at fault ? Where have 
we been negligent ? What have we left undone 
that ought to have been done ? The interest of 
self-preservation is fundamental and imperative. 
When the community fully realizes that its best 
interests are actually imperilled, public senti- 
ment will be aroused to the point of intense ac- 
tivity. Then the danger-point will be reached, — 
the probability of doing something rash and rev- 
olutionary, of applying drastic and harmful 
methods of treatment. 

Indications are multiplying which show that 
we are fast nearing this state of mind. People 



AMERICAN EDUCATION 187 

have expected so much of the Public School that, 
very naturally, when they see that things are 
going wrong, that there is a deficiency of moral 
sentiment, they conclude that these evils and 
dangers are upon us because our system of edu- 
cation is radically at fault. Criticisms and even 
condemnations of the Public Schools abound. 
Eminent educators, with a reputation for sobri- 
ety, pass severe judgments upon our methods of 
popular education, calling especial attention to 
their failure to give proper training in morals. 

It needs no eye of prophecy to see that three 
convictions are taking shape in the public mind : 
(1) the deepening sense that our moral condi- 
tion is unsatisfactory and that our ethical equip- 
ment is inadequate ; (2) the wide-spread con- 
demnation of the Public Schools, holding them 
responsible for the moral delinquencies of so- 
ciety in general ; (3) the demand that some- 
thing be done, vigorous and radical, to avert 
these dangers and remedy these defects. 

In order to cure existing evils and avert im- 
pending dangers, some urge that didactic in- 
struction in ethics be given a prominent place 
in our methods of common school instruction. 



188 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN 

Some ask that the Bible be more largely used 
in the Public School. Some suggest that the 
school-houses be turned over to all the sects for 
the religious instruction of children on evenings 
and Saturdays and during vacations. And some 
demand that the fundamental principles of Chris- 
tianity be introduced into our schools. 

These problems are upon us, not as matters 
of theory, but as practical questions that will 
soon press for careful consideration and skilful 
handling. To show the direction of public senti- 
ment along this line, it would not be difficult to 
mass together a large collection of opinions, like 
the following from Eev. Josiah Strong, D.D., 
president of the League for Social Service, a 
man who is in close touch with the modern 
world and who reflects a growing popular feel- 
ing : ' ' There is a profound need of a great ethi- 
cal revival in the church as well as outside of it, 
and a much better ethical training should be 
given both in the Sunday-school and the day 
school. I am of the number who believe that 
religion affords the only adequate basis for ethi- 
cal instruction. Between the upper and nether 
millstones of Eomanism and secularism, all re- 



A3IERICAN EDUCATION 189 

ligion will be ground out of our Public Schools. 
I would like very much to see inculcated in them 
the fundamental truths common to all monothe- 
istic religions j namely, the existence of a God, 
man's immortality and his accountability. Jew, 
Catholic, and Protestant alike believe in these 
fundamental truths." 

There is much that may be commended in the 
opening sentences of this statement. The need 
of an ethical revival in the churches is evident. 
Many will agree with Dr. Strong that religion is 
the only adequate basis for moral training. But 
the closing sentences raise radically different 
problems. Even if piety is the only sure basis 
for morality, it does not follow that a scheme of 
theology, however brief, should be imposed upon 
our State schools. 

But this noteworthy statement from Dr. Strong, 
and many similar facts, show that some of the 
important matters which ten years ago seemed 
finally and happily settled have to be opened 
up again for fresh discussion from new points of 
view, and another settlement along different lines 
must be reached. The general principles which 
must guide us have been set forth with some ful- 



190 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN 

ness in the opening chapters of this little treatise. 
All that needs be attempted here is to reiterate 
some of the fundamental statements already 
made, especially as they bear upon these new ^ 
phases of the problem, and to consider very 
briefly a few of the new questions that have been 
raised. 

A consideration to be kept prominently in 
mind and pressed to the front is this : It is well 
to realize our ethical insufGciency j but, while 
we do this, let us not condemn the Public 
School for what it is not responsible. To hold 
the common schools responsible for all our social 
immorality and political degradation is an un- 
reasonable, unjust, and harmful interpretation 
of existing conditions : unreasonable, because it 
ignores many influences for evil, such as immi- 
gration, commercialism, domestic disorder, and 
religious indifference, and locates the cause where 
it does not belong j unjust, because it condemns 
the agency which is doing the most to enrich 
and ennoble human life ; harmful, because it is 
a diagnosis which diverts attention from the real 
sources of our misfortunes, discouraging the 
valiant workers for righteousness, and sending 



A3IERIGAN EDUCATION 191 

US in the wrong direction for relief. Let us not 
strike down the best friends of morality and 
religion in the land. And, above all, let us not 
disown the essential principles of our modern 
civilization, and injure both the cause of religion 
and the cause of education by applying in our 
haste a remedy that is worse than the evils that 
really exist. 

A. To those who plead that an elaborate system 
of didactic moral instruction be added to the 
curriculum of the Public Schools in order to in- 
crease the ethical resources of our people, let it 
be said : — 

(1) The courses of study in these schools are at 
present everywhere excessively elaborate and 
burdensome, and what is urgently needed is 
simplification in education rather than addi- 
tional studies. 

(2) The didactic instruction in morals which 
is so frequently demanded will be wholly incapa- 
ble of developing the ethical life sought. What 
is now really being done, as well as what cannot 
be done, in the line of moral training in our 
Public Schools, are vital questions which have 
already been discussed in preceding pages. K 



192 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN 

history and psychology teach anything with com- 
manding impressiveness, it is that spiritual power 
cannot be evolved by the scholastic mechanism 
proposed. 

B. To those who insist that school-houses be 
turned over to the sects for the religious instruc- 
tion of children when the Public School is not in 
session, let it be said : The use of these build- 
ings, which are the property of the secular State, 
for such purposes, would be illegal. It would 
be so far a union of church and State, — the use 
of public property for religious purposes, — what 
is prohibited by the genius of our civilization, 
and also by the constitutions and statutes of a 
majority of our States. It is obviously unneces- 
sary that any innovation like this be attempted, 
for there is hardly anywhere a village but that 
has adequate accommodations for such work in 
the many church buildings of the town. It 
would surely be unwise and inexpedient to in- 
augurate such a policy, for it would give rise at 
once to sectarian jealousies and denominational 
rivalries. 

0. To those who ask, like Dr. Strong, that the 
fundamentals of religion be taught in the Public 
Schools, let it be said : — 



AMERICAN EDUCATION I93 

(1) The same objection liolds against this as 
against didactic moral instruction, — the school 
is already overcrowded with topics and text- 
books. 

(2) This plan is in plain opposition to the im- 
plied and express character of the Public School 
as a State institution. What is ruled out, by the 
provision of the constitution and by the genius 
of our civilization, is not the non-essentials of 
religion, but religious matters of all kinds ; and 
this is done for the good of religion itself. As 
soon as you start on this un-American road, the 
question arises : What is essential, and what 
non-essential? Who shall decide, the pope or 
the Jewish rabbi ? 

(3) The wise friend of religion ought to see 
that the school-room is not the most appropriate 
place for the cultivation of religious feelings : it 
cannot have the spirit, the atmosphere, the as- 
sociations that make religious culture effective. 
To attempt such a combination means simply 
waste of time and vexatious difficulties, without 
reaching the spiritual development of life de- 
sired. Probably, under the skilful teacher, the 
religious nature of the child in the Public School 



194 RELIGIOUS FREED 031 IN 

is often quickened ; but this comes as an indirect 
result. It would seldom occur if the teacher 
were directly seeking to make a religious im- 
pression. 

In this connection it may be well to refer to 
an argument which is being put forth in some 
quarters in behalf of the movement to introduce 
religious instruction into our Public Schools : 
^^It is a serious phase of the present situation 
that the religious and moral instruction of the 
young is isolated from their instruction in other 
departments of knowledge. The correlation of 
the different elements of education is incomplete, 
because the religious and moral instruction is 
received in entire separation from the general 
instruction of the Public Schools. The facts 
and truths of religion are the foundation and 
the imperative of morality. Present civilization 
rests upon the religious and ethical ideals of the 
past, and the civilization of the future depends 
upon a due recognition of religion and morality 
as essential factors in the growing welfare of hu- 
manity. The knowledge and experience of re- 
ligious and moral truth must underlie and pene- 
trate all knowledge and experience. The events 



AMERICAN EDUCATION 195 

and ideas of the past, as of tlie present, must be 
viewed in the light of a divine hand as the cre- 
ator of the universe, a divine power sustaining 
it, a divine wisdom guiding it, and a divine 
purpose being accomplished in it. The physical 
world about us, our fellow-men, and our own 
selves must all be interpreted by religion truly 
conceived and morality properly understood. It 
is therefore impossible to accomplish the ideal 
education of the individual when the religious 
and moral element is isolated from the other ele- 
ments j still worse when it is not received at all 
by the majority of the children. All the ele- 
ments of education must be woven together into 
an organic unity to produce a perfect result. ' ' 

It is certainly discouraging to have such ideas 
as these set forth with the approval of the pres- 
ident of one of our great Universities, who is a 
prominent advocate of more modern methods in 
Sunday-school work. The argument, however 
plausible in appearance, does not touch the 
point at issue. The importance of religion, the 
religious significance of all truth, the necessity 
for harmonious development, — these proposi- 
tions are all true. But they are not involved in 
this discussion. 



196 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN 

Secular instructiou and religious instruction 
are not necessarily separated because one is 
given in a Public School on week-days and the 
other in a church on Sunday. The harmful sep- 
aration between life and religion, which does 
widely exist to-day, does not arise from the fact 
that religion is excluded from the secular school j 
but it arises rather from the fact that the in- 
struction of the church in spirit, method, and 
material, is commonly on a traditional and anti- 
quated plan. To teach religion in church on 
Sunday, and science in the Public School on 
Monday without any theological association, no 
more separates these two spheres of life, no more 
injures either kind of instruction, than the teach- 
ing of the classics by one teacher on Tuesday in 
our school-room injures the scientific instruction 
given by another teacher on Wednesday in the 
laboratory ! 

The absurdity of the argument quoted above 
is easily seen, if we turn the proposition squarely 
about. It is contended, in substance, that relig- 
ion ought to be taught along with arithmetic, in 
order to get the best results in religion. If so, 
then the preacher, to make the deepest spiritual 



AMERICAN EDUCATION 197 

impression, ought to share his morning hour in 
the pulpit on Sunday with a lecturer on vol- 
canoes or on protoplasm ! Now what is really 
necessary is simply that both the teacher of 
science and the teacher of the classics live in the 
same modern world ! So in these other realms : 
the only necessity is that preacher and Sunday- 
school teacher live in the world of modern knowl- 
edge. 

The argument in the foregoing quotation, 
though presented by a Protestant, exactly de- 
scribes the position long held by the Catholic 
church ; namely, that, in order to make educa- 
tion effective, both common knowledge and re- 
ligious dogma must be taught to young people 
by the same teacher in the same school. The 
Catholic holds that scientific instruction given 
apart from theological doctrine is ungodly : not 
only fruitless, but injurious. He holds also that 
to develop the moral sense successfully the creed 
must go hand in hand with general information. 
The complete refutation of this argument, 
whether put forth by Catholic or Protestant, is 
found in the appeal to experience. Where have 
the great scientists of America been educated? 



198 RELIGIOUS FREED 031 IN 

A great majority in the Public Schools, not in 
the parochial schools. Where have our great 
reformers, as a rule, been trained, our men and 
women of keenest conscience, like Parker and 
Garrison, Mary A. Livermore and Frances E. 
Willard, Horace Greeley and Charles Sumner? 
In parish schools ? No, in the common schools ! 

D. To those who demand that, in order to re- 
move the lamentable popular ignorance of the 
Bible, — which indeed widely prevails, especially 
at the i)resent time, among the young, — the 
Scriptures be more extensively used in the Public 
Schools, let it be said : 

(1) The popular ignorance of the Bible is un- 
fortunate, and efficient means ought at once to 
be taken to cultivate a thorough acquaintance 
with these writings and to train people in a 
rational use of them. But this ignorance of the 
Bible, this indifference to Scripture, is in no 
sense due to the fact that it has been dropped 
from the Public Schools. It exists in localities 
where the Bible is daily read in the schools just 
the same as in regions where it is not used. 
Among the masses in England and Germany 
where the schools force a good deal of Bible in- 



AMERICAN EDUCATION 199 

struction upon children, the people are turning 
away from religion and the Scriptures even 
more than with us, showing that the absence of 
a little Bible- reading from the work of our Pub- 
lic School is not the cause of the indifference 
and ignorance under discussion. The condition 
is international, and the cause lies deep down in 
our civilization. 

The fact is that the use of the Bible for dogma 
is widely discredited, because interest in dogma 
has died. The study of the Bible for theology 
has stopped because the theological spirit has 
vanished. And these are unfortunately about 
the only uses of the Bible with which iieople 
are familiar. The views of life with which the 
Bible was erroneously long associated have 
largely been abandoned. The real character 
and true message of the Bible are not generally 
understood. What therefore stands in the way 
of the Bible is not its disuse in the schools, but 
an irrational view of it and a dogmatic use of it. 
The way to kindle an interest in the Bible is not 
to put it back into the schools, but to place it 
on its own merits in the world of religious life. 
Let the churches put the real Bible, illuminated 



200 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN 

by modern discovery, into the hands of the peo- 
ple. This will bring a new day of power for 
the Bible and a rebirth of Christianity itself. 

(2) In order to carry out this suggestion, to 
accomplish what must be done if the object 
sought is realized, a great deal more must be 
undertaken than what the Public Schools can or 
could do, even if their secular character did not 
make the work inappropriate. There is not 
time enough in the Public Schools to give thor- 
ough instruction in the Bible. The old perfunc- 
tory reading of a short passage is not sufficient. 
Anything like a prolonged study is out of the 
question. 

But why go to the Public Schools at all with 
this question ? It is a problem that belongs to 
the churches. If the people are becoming igno- 
rant of the Bible, our ministers are to blame for 
it. Let us not hold the overworked common 
school teacher responsible for this ignorance, 
while we allow the churches to go free of cen- 
sure. What are the hundred thousand churches 
in our IN'ation for, if not just for this one thing,— 
to teach the Bible ? If the Bible has fallen out 
of American life, the churches are to blame for 



AMERICAN EDUCATION 201 

it. Let us hold the guilty party responsible. 
Nothing is more unreasonable than for eccle- 
siastics to blame the State schools for this popu- 
lar ignorance respecting the Bible, which, in 
fact, is an ignorance that reveals their own in- 
sufficiency. It is the church that must do this 
work. Let the church train competent Bible 
teachers and pay for Sunday-school instruction. 
Here, and here alone, is the remedy. President 
Wheeler of the University of California has 
recently made a wise remark, that the churches 
must spend more money on their Sunday-school 
and less on their choir ! 

(3) There is at present a demand made by 
such eminent educators as President Butler of 
Columbia University, that the Bible be given a 
high place in the Public Schools as literature j 
and it is claimed by him and others that, if we 
provide more extensively for its study in the 
common schools as literature, the evils of the 
present situation will be removed. Those who 
advance this argument are right in one particu- 
lar : what we most need is a more rational use 
of the Bible as a precious religious literature. 
But they are wrong in every other particular ! 



202 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN 

The cliurches, not tlie Public Schools, are the 
institutions to do this work, as has just been 
stated. Let us hold them responsible for it. 
They are supported to give religious instruction. 
This is their specific office. It is their business 
to make the people familiar with the greatest 
religious literature in the world. 

But more than this. We could not in the way- 
suggested escape the sectarian entanglement. 
We cannot by this policy satisfy the various 
churches which are not ready to have the Bible 
treated merely as literature ! If the Public 
School should assume to use the Bible simply 
and solely as a literature, which is the demand 
that is made, this would involve the State in 
sectarian wrangles at once. To take this posi- 
tion is to pass judgment on the Bible, it is an 
indirect assumption that the Bible is only litera- 
ture. The State has no right to do this. It will 
get into trouble with the churches if it attempts 
to do it. Some church would very soon say: 
^'The Bible is an infallible revelation, and the 
State school has no right to use it simply as 
a literature ! We protest against having our 
children use the Bible just as they use Cicero's 
Orations ! '' 



AMERICAN EDUCATION 203 

The friends of religious freedom in education 
in America ought to keep in mind themselves, 
and make clear to others, these fundamental 
truths : — 

I. The Public Schools must be judged by what 
they accomplish in the particular line of their 
special work. They are created and supported 
by the State to provide a certain type and 
amount of education, — the education most needed 
for good citizenship, — which the Secular State is 
in duty bound to give. It is not intended that 
they develop all sides of human nature or equip 
the individual for every task in life. There are 
other agencies and institutions to prepare people 
for these tasks, — the home, the church, the li- 
brary. If the common schools fail in their 
specific work, let them be criticised, in order 
that they may be improved. But let us not be 
so unjust as to condemn them for public defi- 
ciencies which lie quite apart from their sphere 
and for which they are not responsible. And 
let us not be so unwise as to injure them and the 
cause of true piety by imposing upon them the 
important but delicate duties of religious instruc- 
tion, which they are not organized to give and 



204 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN 

which are amply provided for by other institu- 
tions if they do their duty. 

II. If the churches will do their work as effi- 
ciently as the teachers of the Public Schools are 
doing theirs, the present popular ignorance of 
the Bible will soon disappear and the increase 
of moral power among our people will be en- 
couragingly rapid. Ko wonder that the young 
people are ignorant of Scripture and indifferent 
to it. How could it be otherwise with such 
methods as are generally used in the Sunday- 
schools and with such teachers as are provided, 
as a rule, for Sunday-school classes ! What 
is done in the ordinary Sunday-school is not 
worthy of the name instruction. It is mere 
inane dawdling ! How can you expect high 
school boys and girls to take any interest in the 
Bible when their Sunday-school teacher con- 
tradicts what they have learned about history 
and nature ? When he sees nothing in the Bible 
page but a scheme of theology discredited by 
the common knowledge of the time ! When he 
takes them into a dead world of irrational tradi- 
tions ! No wonder that the Bible goes unread 
when so unskilfully presented. 



AMERICAN EDUCATION 205 

We insist that the person who teaches our 
children grammar and chemistry shall be mature, 
thoroughly educated, and especially trained for 
her work. But we pick up any sentimental girl 
or superannuated goody, and make her a Sunday- 
school teacher. We commit to her our children 
to be trained in ethics and religion, to be in- 
structed in the character and message of the 
Bible, — a far more important and delicate ser- 
vice than teaching grammar and chemistry. 
Nothing more unwise could i)ossibly be done. 
If careful preparation and special aptitude are 
needed in the Public school teacher, far more 
do we need Sunday-school teachers who are 
chosen with great care and specially trained for 
their work. But where is the church that has 
them ? that is willing to pay for them ? 

It is largely because the Sunday-school work 
is so poorly done that the Bible is becoming a 
dead book. And for this, strange to say, the 
Public Schools are savagely condemned. As 
people neglect the Bible chiefly because the 
Sunday-school teacher is incompetent and the 
church faib in its own mission of Bible instruc- 
tion, a hue and cry is raised, and the demand is. 



206 RELIGIOUS FREE DO 31 IN 

made tliat the overtaxed Public School teacher 
be compelled to do this work ! Nothing more 
unjust or unwise could be imagined. "We must 
insist that the churches provide trained teachers 
to do the work that belongs to them. -And, when 
we have Sunday-school teachers even half as 
competent in their line of religious instruction 
as the Public School teachers are in secular in- 
struction, then the Bible will again be widely 
known and religion will have new power. 

II. Eespecting Colleges and Uniyeesities. 

During the last twenty-five years there has 
been in our American institutions of higher 
learning a notable and decided movement 
toward religious freedom, substituting voluntary 
for compulsory attendance on chapel and church. 
The institutions to participate the least in this 
movement have been State Normal Schools and 
Agricultural Colleges. Those that have been 
foremost in carrying out the ideal of neutrality 
in religion have been the State Universities and 
a few great institutions, like Harvard, Cornell, 
and Leland Stanford, Jr. Some institutions with 
close denominational afBiliations, like Yale, 



AMERICAN EDUCATION 207 

Smith, and Columbia have made notable prog- 
ress in the same direction. 

In only a few cases, like the University of 
Wisconsin, has the chapel service been aban- 
doned. In many cases, even where the religious 
spirit is intense, the voluntary policy has been 
substituted for the compulsory. In many other 
cases, where attendance is still required, the 
character of the exercises has radically changed, 
and, on the whole, improved in breadth and 
variety. The meeting now held is more a social 
and educational assemblage than a formal relig- 
ious exercise. 

The recent change at Earlham College (Ortho- 
dox Quaker), Eichmond, Ind., illustrates this 
tendency. Attendance is still compulsory ; but, 
instead of the somewhat staid and perfunctory 
service formerly held, the exercises are now 
varied and free, — readings outside of Scripture, 
addresses on current topics, and a large use of 
music. Almost everywhere the chapel exercises 
have been stripped of dogma and intolerance, 
while they have been humanized and vitalized. 
The chapel has come to be prized and enjoyed 
for its advantages as a common meeting, where 



208 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN 

faculty and students come together and feel the 
enthusiasm of a corporate life, where the gen- 
eral interests of the institution are presented, 
and where the social instincts as well as the 
religious feelings are fostered. 

All this is forcibly indicated in what has 
occurred at Lehigh University : chapel was 
originally compulsory ; then it was made volun- 
tary 5 but after two years it was again made 
compulsory at the request of the whole student 
body (445), not so much as a matter of religious 
interest, but because they wanted to see the 
whole college together once a day in the interest 
of ^ '■ college spirit. ' ' 

The following statement by a University presi- 
dent seems eminently wise : ^ ^ I believe in the 
benefit to students in coming together freely 
daily for a short period. They thus keep in 
touch with what is going on and with one 
another. The chapel period can be made very 
profitable for students. If one avoids all sancti- 
monious pretence, presents interestingly some 
ethical and religious topic, and puts life, energy, 
and scholarship into chapel exercises, attend- 
ance will follow, and the problem is solved for 
ninety-nine out of one hundred students.'^ 



AMERICAN ED UCA TION 209 

What has occurred at Earlham and Lehigh 
illustrates the spirit and method of the changes 
which are everywhere being made in the realm 
of higher education. The general gain may be 
briefly described in this statement : The relig- 
ious rights of the student are far more widely 
respected than ever before ; theological opinions 
opposed to his own conviction are not thrust 
upon him ; his own religious views, if uncom- 
mon and peculiar, do not subject him so much 
as formerly to annoyance ; religion appeals to 
him in a more rational and winsome manner ; 
and he is made to feel that piety is a personal 
matter for which he as an individual is alone 
responsible. 

The changes indicated have been advantage- 
ous, on the whole, to the cause of religion and 
also to the cause of education. These changes 
do not mean an indifference to religion, but a 
larger conception of what religion really is, a 
clearer understanding of the true methods of re- 
ligious nurture, and a stronger faith in the inher- 
ent religiousness of human nature. What seems 
at first glance like an unfortunate secularization 
of education has been followed, in many in- 



210 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN 

stances, by a deeper religious life among the 
students. This is true even in such institutions 
as the great State Universities of Wisconsin and 
California where no chapel exists. What the 
formal and official service failed to do has been 
done by the students themselves, acting freely and 
spontaneously through the local churches or in 
connection with some form of Christian Associa- 
tion. 

An illustration of this fact is found in the 
situation at Ann Arbor, the seat of the Univer- 
sity of Michigan j and the same is true in other 
college towns. During the year fully fifty ser- 
mons and addresses on distinctly religious topics 
are given by a score or more distinguished clergy- 
men and laymen of the country. These men are 
secured by the students, acting through local 
churches or organizations of their own. All 
these discourses are free to the public j and the 
attendance of the students is seldom less than 
100, and it often rises to 1,000. Some are given 
on Sundays, and some are given on week-days. 
It may confidently be asserted that there is pro- 
portionately much less hatred of the church 
among students to-day than half a century ago. 



AMERICAN EDUCATION 211 

A larger proportion of students are now engaged 
in some form of religious interest or activity 
than at any time in the last half- century. 

In taking account of the religious condition of 
our colleges and Universities, the Young Men's 
Christian Association and similar organizations 
must not be overlooked. The Association is 
increasing in numbers and multiplying its ac- 
tivities at all our seats of learning. It has 
effectively organized the students of conserva- 
tive beliefs. It fosters their religious life, and 
sets them at work in many helpful ministries. 
To it chiefly is due the fact, just stated, that 
to-day a larger proportion of students than ever 
before are aggressively active in the religious 
life. The work may be less modern and effec- 
tive than it might be, but it is positive and 
earnest. These results show that, as our educa- 
tional institutions have ceased to coerce students 
in these matters, the young people themselves 
have taken religious interests into their own 
hands ; and they have not only made religion 
a more personal affair, but they have given it 
more practical and varied expression. 

There are many deeply religious people who 



212 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN 

wish that the basis of the Association were 
broader and its spirit less dogmatic, yet we may 
all rejoice in the large work that it is doing ; 
and we would earnestly insist that students of 
a more modern religious ideal ought to be 
equally active in larger methods of religious 
culture. While the Association does not repre- 
sent a religious spirit sufficiently progressive 
and inclusive, yet it is encouraging to note that 
it does mark a wide and hopeful departure from 
petty controversies and arid dogmas. It is, to 
a large extent, interdenominational, and so far 
helpful to theological neutrality in education ; 
but it stops short of freedom of truth and uni- 
versality of fellowship. 

But let no one imagine that the best has yet 
been done in a sufficiently large way to secure 
theological neutrality on the one hand, and on 
the other to provide the motive and method for 
positive religious culture. In many cases the 
present methods represent an arrested develop- 
ment. More has been done to secure for students 
liberty of religious belief than to give efficient 
nuiture to their spiritual nature. The cultiva- 
tion of the heart has not kept pace with the 



AMERICAN EDUCATION 213 

decay of doctrinal compulsion. Text and dogma 
are not now forced upon the young as they once 
were : here is the improvement. An effective 
training in vital piety has not been generally 
reached : here is the limitation. We are in a 
stage of transition. We have put aside some old 
errors, but we have not widely adopted new and 
better methods. 

The present problem is not, How to emanci- 
pate from bonds'? but, rather, How to secure 
the free cultivation and improvement of the re- 
ligious life of students ? The conviction deepens 
that compulsory attendance on a formal relig- 
ious service is not a wise policy. The important 
fact is not what we have compelled the student 
to attend, but what we have helped him to at- 
tain. On the other hand, simply making a life- 
less exercise voluntary is not sufficient. We 
cannot in this way provide a commanding in- 
ducement to piety or a vitalizing religious at- 
mosphere. Merely ceasing to drive is not be- 
ginning to win young hearts to reverence and 
righteousness. 

The social and educational assembly or convo- 
( cation, with discussion of current topics, which 



214 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN 

has grown up in many institutions, and which 
expresses the present tendency, represents a gain 
for religious freedom and for life in general. 
But, though called a '^chapel exercise" and 
fringed with prayer and Bible-reading, it pro- 
vides no adequate religious training or inspira- 
tion. As a meeting for school notices and good 
fellowship, it may be fruitful ; but it is not in 
that secular atmosphere nor by those superficial 
methods that the religious nature of the young 
can be successfully cultivated. 

Eeligion is too great and too precious a factor 
in human life to be ignored by the educator 
or left entirely to the whim or caprice of the 
college student. On the other hand, an equal 
danger lies in a compulsory, lifeless, or repel- 
lent administration of sacred things. Nowhere 
is greater skill or more careful preparation 
needed than in the conduct of a religious service 
attended by susceptible young men and women. 
Whether a bane or a blessing will depend upon 
the spirit of the man behind the pulpit. The 
supreme end to be reached is positiveness of 
religious impression without intolerance or 
dogmatism. 



AMERICAN EDUCATION 215 

Just how to interest students in religion, 
especially in State institutions, while respecting 
their freedom and imposing no creed, is a prob- 
lem as yet incompletely solved. However much 
neighboring churches may do, and however valu- 
able the services of voluntary associations among 
the students themselves, the institution itself 
ought to provide opportunity and incentive. 
Nothing better can be recommended to overcome 
existing defects and secure the desired ends than 
some plan similar to that in successful operation 
at Harvard, — utmost liberty in attendance, the 
ministers of various denominations, who have the 
genius to make religion interesting and impres- 
sive, acting in rotation during the year as 
preachers and pastors, and their residence during 
service in close contact with the students for free 
and friendly counsel. Under such conditions 
the authority and influence of the institution 
itself are brought to bear, without compulsion or 
dogmatism, in favor of high spiritual ideals. 
The form of piety thus cultivated will surely be 
rational, genuine, and broad. 

A special building, beautiful and impressive, 
with the enriching associations of sanctity ; 



216 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM 

music and prayers that are the expression of 
the purest and most catholic feelings of worship j 
the affirmation of universal religious truths with 
simplicity and power; the presence of those 
brought by earnest cravings for the divine life, — 
these are the elements of a chapel or church 
service that will offend none and bless all. 



JUN 17 1903 



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